Connect with us

Football

On OSU’s Home Field Advantage and Bad Early Season Matchups

Does better nonconference scheduling actually help a team?

Published

on

I got two great questions from Evan B. via email a few weeks ago. I’ll attempt to answer them as objectively as possible with available data. Let’s jump in with Q1.

The first one deals with home losses. In the last five years (2013 season to 2017 season) in the Gundy era he has lost nine home games and six road games. Now 10 home losses if we count the Texas Tech loss. I did not count neutral field loses. It seems that for a program that has been as successful as OSU the last several years that we would defend our home field better.

It would be interesting to look at comparable programs over this time and compare home winning percentages. I know that people say that Boone Pickens is a tough place to play, but it just doesn’t seem like it gives us a touchdown or two advantage at home like it should. Maybe I am wrong on this I haven’t actually calculated OSU’s home winning percentage, but it just seems like we shouldn’t have more home losses than road losses.

A good question! And a fascinating answer.

I took this all the way back to 2010 and looked at the top 20 teams in the country in terms of overall winning percentage.

Team Win % Home Road Difference
Oklahoma 81% 85% 85% 0%
Oklahoma State 75% 77% 74% 2%
TCU 72% 76% 71% 4%
Alabama 90% 93% 86% 8%
Florida State 78% 83% 73% 9%
Ohio State 86% 92% 82% 10%
Oregon 76% 83% 70% 13%
Wisconsin 77% 88% 74% 14%
Michigan State 74% 79% 66% 14%
N. Illinois 70% 85% 69% 16%
SDSU 69% 79% 62% 17%
Toledo 69% 78% 61% 18%
Georgia 73% 85% 67% 19%
Stanford 79% 89% 70% 19%
Boise State 80% 90% 71% 19%
USC 69% 80% 60% 20%
Clemson 82% 92% 71% 21%
Notre Dame 69% 76% 54% 22%
LSU 77% 88% 63% 25%
App State 68% 81% 53% 28%

How about three Big 12 teams having the “worst” home field advantage? Also, how bad has OU been in neutral site games?!

This surprised me, although maybe it shouldn’t have. It seems like Ohio State’s numbers should be the benchmark for a really good team. It seems like you should win 10 percent more at home than you do on the road. OSU has been great on the road — better than TCU, Florida State, Oregon and Georgia — but worse at home than Toledo and San Diego State.

Onto the next one.

Is there any correlation to scheduling weak non conference opponents and losing the opening conference game? You all have been throwing around the stat that Gundy is now 7-7 in conference openers which is not at all what I would have guessed if someone were to have asked me.

I know this year we played Boise State who is no slouch, but Missouri State and South Alabama are awful. There really isn’t much that can be taken away from those games as far as competing for four quarters and getting a feel for the speed and physicality of conference play. I’m not suggesting that we go and play Ohio State and Bama every year, but just a small step up in some non conference games could give the players and coaching staff a better idea of their weaknesses and strengths heading in to conference play.

Another interesting one. Here are the games leading into conference play since 2010.

Year Game 1 Game 2 Game 3 Big 12 Game 1 Big 12 Result
2010 Washington St. Troy Tulsa Texas A&M W
2011 Louisiana Arizona Tulsa Texas A&M W
2012 Savannah Arizona Louisiana Texas L
2013 Mississippi St. UTSA Lamar WVU L
2014 Florida State Missouri St. UTSA Texas Tech W
2015 Central Michigan Central Arkansas UTSA Texas W
2016 SE Louisiana Central Michigan Pitt Baylor L
2017 Tulsa S. Alabama Pitt TCU L
2018 Missouri St. S. Alabama Boise St. Texas Tech L

I’m not sure there’s a ton to glean from this. At first I thought there would be, but OSU has won Big 12 openers (2015) when it played zero good teams, and it has lost Big 12 openers (2013) when it has opened with a SEC team that went to a bowl.

My biggest takeaway is how unbelievable it is that OSU played for two Big 12 titles (2013 and 2016) after losing its first Big 12 game and how in 2014 it won its Big 12 opener and barely made a bowl (but beat OU). These facts will never not be amazing to me.

Maybe I’m underselling the importance of playing good teams, but 2010, 2011 and 2015 weren’t exactly a murderer’s row of opponents, and OSU won its Big 12 openers in those seasons. You could actually make a case that 2018 was a better crescendo into the Big 12 season with the Boise game being played last and OSU ? the bed against Tech one week later.

How about this as an alternate working theory: Play awful teams in the third game so you don’t start believing what blogs like this are saying about you. Look at the last three seasons. OSU won a good game against a Power 5 team in 2016, lost to Baylor a week later. OSU destroyed a Power 5 team on the road in 2017, lost to TCU at home a week later. OSU pounded maybe the best non-Power 5 team in 2018, got blown out by Tech a week later.

Those are probably the three best Week 3 games OSU has played in the last nine years, and they’re 0-3 after those games but 4-2 after playing putrid teams in Week 3. *Gundy schedules the intramural B league champs for Week 3 starting in 2019.

Most Read

Copyright © 2011- 2023 White Maple Media