In College Football, Home Field Advantage Often Overestimated

Physorg.com: In College Football, Home Field Advantage Often Overestimated

This year, many of college football's biggest rivalry games take place over Thanksgiving weekend. A win earns bragging rights for the year. Visiting teams are often thought to be at a considerable disadvantage, especially in the disruptive environment of a rival's home stadium. In terms of points, however, that disadvantage is probably less than they think. Recent research claims that commonly accepted figures overestimate the home field advantage in major college football. …

… Over all 100 rivalries, the advantage of playing at home tended to cluster around 2.3 points. Kros found a similar result when calculating the median (the mid-point of an ordered list from worst loss to largest margin of victory) instead of the average for each situation.

"Something's showing up, I can tell you that," said Kros. "It's definitively different from zero."

Attempting to find a universal number for home field advantage is difficult for a variety of reasons, including the yearly turnover of players and coaches, the differences in team quality and the structure of the schedule.