clhs sciblog

We have just past that time of year where the biggest rivalry games in college football are played.  Every school has their big rival and can get fired up to play that team on any given day, even without bowl implications or win-loss record out the window.  John Kros, from East Carolina University has led a study on homefield advantage.  He’s trying to find answers to questions we ask all the time.  Kros took data from the last 30 years of rivalry games in college football and found an average advantage for home teams.  The results came out to about 2.3 points.  In football, that obviously is less than a field goal, and when rounded down equal to a two point conversion after a touchdown.  So according to Kros’ research to this point, the advantage isn’t very high.

We sometimes make a big deal out of being the home team, no matter what the level of the sport is.  The bottom line is they are all playing the same game on the same playing field or court, but players can get an extra adrenaline rush from playing in front of the home crowd.  Kros is going to continue to do research, possibly looking at games over the last 20 years instead of 30.  Homefield advantage may not exist, but factors like distance traveled for the away team will be looked into.  Being an athlete and a sports fan, this draws my interest because traditional fan knowledge leads us to think the home team has an advantage.  Whether they capitalize on it is up to the players.  This advantage may not be able to be truly measured, but with the amount of knowledge and data some of these researchers have available, I would never doubt it.  For the full article, click here.