I have gotten many requests to do a blog to explain how I compute each teams home field edge in the magazine. I have 27 different factors in my computer’s grade of a team. I then compare the computer’s analysis to my own and make the final decision.

While I mention that there are 27 factors in my home field computer ratings, there are actually nine individual factors that I use each year and I then combine the grades for the last three years giving half of the grade to last year, 30% to the numbers from two years ago and 20% to the computer rankings from three years ago.

Today I will go over the nine different areas that I use to rate home field edge. The first category is the stadium capacity. The largest stadium in the country last year was Penn St which held 107,282 and my computer gave them the maximum score of 6 for that category. My home field edges go from 0 to 6 in the magazine so they have the same scale in the computer. The smallest capacity is Idaho’s Kibbie Dome which seated just 16,000 and they received a 0 in that category. The rest of the capacities are done with a simple equation of Capacity-16,000 divided by 15,250. The reason I divide by 15,250 is that Penn St at 107,282-16,000 = 91,282 and 91,282 divided by 6 (0-6 scale) = 15,214 and I rounded up to get the 15,250. You can figure out what your favorite team is graded in this category by using this simple equation.

The second category is actual attendance reported by the school in 2009. Once again Michigan was at the top with 108,933 and this time the team at the bottom was Eastern Michigan which averaged just 5,016 fans per game last year. I used the same method as above to turn this data into a 0 to 6 rating where Michigan received a 6, Eastern Michigan a 0 and as an example Idaho with an attendance of 12,546 earned a 0.33 grade.

The third category is % of capacity. Let’s face it, a crowd of 45,000 in a 45,000 seat stadium is louder than a crowd of 45,000 in a half-full 90,000 seat stadium. The winner in this category last year was Oregon and at 108% of capacity as they had an avg attendance of 58,544 with a listed capacity of 54,000. Texas also had a 108% capacity with an avg attendance of 101,175 with a stadium capacity of 93,553. There were 13 schools that had a larger average attendance than their listed capacity last year. At the bottom of this category was Eastern Michigan again which brought in an average of 5,016 fans to their 30,200 seat stadium which is just 16.6%. Four teams had an average attendance of less than 30% capacity and 10 had an average attendance of less than 50% of capacity.

The next category is last years straight up win/loss record for each team at home. There were 15 teams last year that finished with an undefeated record at home while there were 3 teams last year that were actually winless at home. Those 3 teams were Eastern Michigan, Ball St and Western Kentucky.

The fifth category is the last 3 years SU records at home. Oklahoma and Boise St are both undefeated at home in that span while Houston, TCU, Texas, Troy and Utah all have just one loss. At the bottom of the scale is North Texas who has won just 3 home games in the last 3 years. Once again this is on a 0-6 point basis.

The next category is the last 5 years records at home. Boise St comes in #1 here at a perfect 32-0 with Oklahoma losing just 1 game at home. Florida is next up with just 2 losses. North Texas is at the bottom at 5-21 over 5 years while Duke is 6-25.

Sometimes teams compile great home records because they play a bunch of cupcakes. Sometimes teams compile a weak record because they play a large amount of ranked teams. The easiest way to determine if a team played above or below expectations is to look at their records against the Las Vegas spread. If a team was favored to win by 30 that means the opponent was weak and a 3 point win is unimpressive vs that caliber of opponent. I weigh each of the different factors and the actual home win record is given twice the weight of the ATS record. I used the records for last year, the last 3 years and the last 5 years. The best record over the last 5 years is CMU at 17-5 with TCU #2 at 20-7 and UCLA #3 at 23-9. At the bottom are Duke at 7-20, Fresno at 7-18 and Tulane at 8-19.

I then factor in the 9 categories from the 2008 and 2007 seasons which gives me 27 categories for the computer to factor in and I have them appropriately weighted. I then look at the computer’s grade which had Oklahoma #1 with a 5.61 home edge. Florida #2 at 5.48 and Texas #3 at 5.47. At the bottom the computer has Eastern Michigan #120 at 1.31, North Texas #119 at 1.51 and Duke #118 at 1.78.

The final category is my own personal grade. I have 12 TV’s in front of me and watch 12 games all day long on Saturday and watch every nighttime game on ESPN. I can hear the crowd noise at each stadium and I weigh in how many times I thought it was a factor in a game. I look at how good the team has been the last 5 years and what percentage of games they win at home and on the road in my personal evaluation.

After that evaluation, I gave three teams a 6-point home edge in this year’s magazine in Virginia Tech, Boise St and Oregon. Oklahoma has a 5.75 grade while Florida, Penn St, Ohio St and Texas all earned 5.5 grades from me. At the bottom of the scale I gave a 1.5 point home edge to Eastern Michigan with North Texas, Kent St, Duke, FIU, New Mexico St and Tulane all earning 2s.

Here are all my 2010 Homefield edges for all 120 Teams.

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