In the weeks leading up to this strange, limited-capacity season of college football, oddsmakers salivated over the prospect of something akin to a control study for home-field advantage. What role does geography play if crowds are reduced by 75 percent, or if there are no crowds at all?
“I think home-field advantage for everyone may be gone,” Big Ten Network analyst Howard Griffith said in mid-September. So far, he seems to have been right. Home losses have piled up regardless of conference or program pedigree.
Through seven weeks,1 overall home winning percentage (.617) is the lowest at this point in any season since at least 2008. Some of that has to do with the lack of cupcake opponents, given that teams have largely played within their conferences: Only 63 of the 167 home contests played so far in the Football Bowl Subdivision have involved nonconference opponents, for a share of just 37.7 percent; from 2008 through 2019, nonconference games made up 61.4 percent of the home games among the first six games played each season......
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...-this-season-the-big-ten-should-fit-right-in/
“I think home-field advantage for everyone may be gone,” Big Ten Network analyst Howard Griffith said in mid-September. So far, he seems to have been right. Home losses have piled up regardless of conference or program pedigree.
Through seven weeks,1 overall home winning percentage (.617) is the lowest at this point in any season since at least 2008. Some of that has to do with the lack of cupcake opponents, given that teams have largely played within their conferences: Only 63 of the 167 home contests played so far in the Football Bowl Subdivision have involved nonconference opponents, for a share of just 37.7 percent; from 2008 through 2019, nonconference games made up 61.4 percent of the home games among the first six games played each season......
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...-this-season-the-big-ten-should-fit-right-in/
