The expansion of the College Football Playoff produced more meaningful games during the 2024 regular season. As early as October, teams were faced with two losses and needed a November sweep to compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff.
Home-field advantage may have become one of the biggest handicaps in recent years, especially when it comes to the Big Ten and SEC.
The Big Ten saw the introduction of four teams from the West Coast with the demise of the Pac-12.
UCLA contributed a modest 2-3 home mark against the spread in its first season under DeShaun Foster, but the remaining Pac-12 legacy teams cleaned up at home.
Washington, USC and Oregon combined for an 11-2 against-the-spread mark at home in conference play.
A similar scenario played out in the SEC, where Disney made the investment to purchase the mid-afternoon rights from CBS.
College football fans were treated to an electric Saturday night game almost every weekend, especially for the underdog. SEC home underdogs in the evening night window finished 10-4 against the spread on the season.
While both are small sample sets and could be corrected in the coming college football seasons, it's worth noting that the new playoff format and conference alignment created five-star football in 2024.
For that reason, we have updated our home-field advantage numbers before we calculate returning experience and win totals.
Home-field advantage is generally assigned as 2.5 points by most individuals handicapping football games. Action Network takes a different approach to deriving the number, though, as teams that consistently beat oddsmakers at home should be rewarded.
While LSU and Tennessee may be two of the loudest stadiums, two Group of Five teams lead our numbers when it comes to how many points are assigned for teams playing at home.
Our calculations look over a 10-year sample set of home records against the number. A Taylor series is used with those 10 data points as polynomials with a convergent data point of 2.5 to represent standard home-field advantage.
This calculation evens out a hot transfer portal and recruiting class while lifting a bad stint with an underachieving head coach.
Here's a look at our updated home-field advantage numbers heading into the 2025 season:
