I didn't include home field advantage in my analysis on this season.I looked around and found the following statement at:
http://predictionmachine.com/college-football-homefield-advantage:
"The truth is that some stadiums could actually mean up to nine points, while some do not help much at all." We ranked 16th on their list of best home field advantage.
To try this out, I pulled 10 teams at random and their home-away records over the last four years (to allow a few in-conference cycles).
I found that these teams averaged a record of 18-8 at home and 10-12 away over the four-year period. I tested this for statistical significance (one number being higher than the other is not enough) and found that this difference is not considered to be statistically significant (Fisher's Exact test). It creates an effect size of 0.22, which can be considered a moderate effect.
According to the website, and others I've read, the average home field advantage is around 3-4 points, or a possible 6-8 point swing from one venue to the other. I looked at these teams schedules from last year to see how many games were decided by 8 points or less in favor of the home team:
Auburn - 2/12
BYU - 5/12
Ga. Tech - 1/12
SD St. - 1/12
Colorado - 0/12
Cincy - 3/12
Fresno St. - 1/12
Mich. St. - 2/12
Washington - 3/12
Tex Tech - 1/12
TOTAL: 19/120 or about 16% (1 in 6 games)
Clearly, playing at home has a
moderate effect on winning and losing. The fact is, the grand majority of games are decided by more than 8 points and, of those, not all go in favor of the home team.
I found this article from 2002 (
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/03/sports/college-football-in-real-life-victory-margin-matters.html) that shows the average winning margin to be between 17-20 points, so 8 points isn't going to be a big deal around 80% of the time.
Is home field advantage a factor in winning? Certainly. Would I consider it among the biggest factors? NO. What I do know is that my system has been below 50% in picking close games and the difference can be attributed to home field advantage swinging the prediction to the team that ended up losing. Therefore, it is out of this fella's spreadsheet.