Teams are no longer home free for victories

09.10.2007 03:00 Sport and Travel - Source: USA Today

But while the Trojans have been unbeatable at home since 2001, when the streak began following another loss to Stanford, the same cannot be said for the rest of Division I-A (now Football Bowl Subdivision).

In each season from 2001-05, the winning percentage for home teams declined or remained unchanged. In 2005, the home team won just 59% of the games, the lowest since 1995. The winning percentage had stayed at better than 60% for nine seasons.

The longest active major college home winning streak now belongs to LSU at 17 — basically half of the old streak.

Kansas coach Mark Mangino, whose No. 20 Jayhawks defeated Kansas State 30-24 Saturday in Manhattan for the first time since 1989, was unaware of the dip. He chalked it up to increased parity among the 119 major college programs.

"There are still teams playing well and winning games that aren't steeped in talent," Mangino said. "You see more and more teams winning games that they shouldn't because they are really prepared and they have a good mental edge."

This season has includes several high-profile road victories. Arguably the biggest came on the opening weekend when Appalachian State of I-AA (now Football Championship Subdivision) won 34-32 at Michigan. The Wolverines dropped another home game the next week to Oregon.

Of the seven teams that lost while in the top 10 the past two weeks, four — USC, Florida, Texas and Rutgers — were defeated at home. Rutgers added a second consecutive home loss Saturday.

The current Top 25 teams have 19 total losses, eight of which came at home and two on neutral fields. At this same point last season, the Top 25 had 18 losses, with nine at home and one on a neutral field.

Another indication of the declining effect of home advantage can be seen in the computer ratings done for USA TODAY by Jeff Sagarin. Each week, he assigns an average advantage to the home teams, which historically has been around 3.00.

This year, it has been running at 2.94, and he projects in the next few weeks, particularly with more conference play, that it will drop to 2.56. Last season, the number got as low as 1.94. In 2004, it was 4.20.

But like Mangino, Sagarin isn't convinced that there is a tangible reason for the decline.

"I don't think there have been systemic changes, like rules changes, that would have an impact," Sagarin said. "But you have to ask, is there a logical reason?"

He says that sometimes "people try to ascribe meaning to what may truly be a random set of events."

No. 5 Oklahoma and No. 18 Kentucky experienced their lone losses on the road, but that could change Saturday. The Sooners host No. 11 Missouri while the Wildcats get a visit from No. 1 LSU.

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