Open question- How much of a home field advantage is DWS?

[Bulldogg31]

Looking back over the last decade or so we average about 2-2 in SEC games every year. Is that what it should be?

 

[natchezdawg]

When you look at what the SEC West has been like the last decade...

that is not surprising at all.

 

[Bulldogg31]

that is not surprising at all.

Yeah, no doubt. Just wondering if other schools have more of an advantage at home. We seem to be about the same whether home or away. I haven’t looked into it too much but It just doesn’t seem like we get much of an advantage being at home but I could be wrong.

 

[BossDawg78]

I think we should do like many other teams during big games and pipe in crowd noise. Not just that, get some of those LRADs like the military uses so we can pinpoint the soundwaves right at the quarterback. Mount lasers on that bad boy, too. Release the engineers!!!

 

[WilCoDawg]

I wonder if aTm and Barners asked this after we beat them quite handedly this year.

 

[oxfordrebel22]

I saw an actual academic study that someone did a few years ago, that tried to truly rank what the best home field advantage was. Not just overall record, crowd size, etc. but in actual relation to what your home performance looks like compared to expectations on the road, talent levels, historical success, and the success of the teams you played that year. The study explained it way better than I just did, but in other words, MSU going 5-2 at home would likely be looked at more favorably than Alabama going 7-0 at home.

And I want to say that MSU was ranked as having the #1 home field advantage in the country. But if not #1 then it was shockingly high. And they hypothesized that the cowbells of course played a big part in it. And it wasn’t an Ole Miss study that was just trying to throw shade, plus we aren’t smart enough to do studies like that anyways. I’ll try and find it, but I don’t think teams look forward to coming to DWS.

 

[Leeshouldveflanked]

It would be a lot more if we could close in the South Endzone with Condos/Convention Center.

 

[dawgnabit]

When fans are engaged I really believe it is a nightmare for teams. I think getting rid of the M Club and closing it in would make it a lot more intimidating. Also, we need to go back to giving the visiting teams a crappy locker room. Make them feel uncomfortable as soon as they walk in. I hate that we now give them our old locker room. We probably have the nicest visiting locker rooms in the conference

 

[Bulldogg31]

I saw an actual academic study that someone did a few years ago, that tried to truly rank what the best home field advantage was. Not just overall record, crowd size, etc. but in actual relation to what your home performance looks like compared to expectations on the road, talent levels, historical success, and the success of the teams you played that year. The study explained it way better than I just did, but in other words, MSU going 5-2 at home would likely be looked at more favorably than Alabama going 7-0 at home.

And I want to say that MSU was ranked as having the #1 home field advantage in the country. But if not #1 then it was shockingly high. And they hypothesized that the cowbells of course played a big part in it. And it wasn’t an Ole Miss study that was just trying to throw shade, plus we aren’t smart enough to do studies like that anyways. I’ll try and find it, but I don’t think teams look forward to coming to DWS.

That’s interesting and I do think that’s the way to approach it.

“Does an engaged home crowd help a lesser team rise to a higher level of play in order to defeat a more talented opponent?”

Our results are so all over the place (both home and away) that it’s hard to answer that question in our case.

 

[Dawgzilla]

I think we should do like many other teams during big games and pipe in crowd noise. Not just that, get some of those LRADs like the military uses so we can pinpoint the soundwaves right at the quarterback. Mount lasers on that bad boy, too. Release the engineers!!!

If only there were some way our fans could create a sharp, irritating sound that could disrupt the communication of opposing teams. Something so obnoxious that the league would pass special rules about it, and opposing coaches would complain when we ignored those rules....

Lets get our best engineers on it!

 

[Antonio Brown's Foot]

Because Veteran teams prefer playing on the road

There's far fewer distractions. It's only you, your teammates, coaches, hardcore fans, and family that are there. You adopt an "Us vs. Them" attitude. The opposing fans' hate fuels you and focuses you on shutting them up.

 

[Mjoelner]

Whatever it is, it would be a lot more if the faculty/staff area on the east side wasn't 90% opposition fans for big games.

 

[Bulldogg31]

Whatever it is, it would be a lot more if the faculty/staff area on the east side wasn't 90% opposition fans for big games.

This is true, and those are really good seats. Gotta be a way to encourage those folks to find a better home for their tickets.

 

[Go Budaw]

Looking back over the last decade or so we average about 2-2 in SEC games every year. Is that what it should be?

We play either Alabama or LSU at home every year. We are 1-13 against those 2 over the past 14 years (since Saban built his superpower). That generally makes 3-1 the absolute ceiling….and 2-2 about what you’d expect anytime we don’t have a Top 15 team, which we’ve had exactly twice over that period of time.

 

[Bulldogg31]

We play either Alabama or LSU at home every year. We are 1-13 against those 2 over the past 14 years (since Saban built his superpower). That generally makes 3-1 the absolute ceiling….and 2-2 about what you’d expect anytime we don’t have a Top 15 team, which we’ve had exactly twice over that period of time.

Actually Bama and LSU are on the same rotation for us. Either both on the road (even-numbered years) or both at home (odd years).

For the past decade or more we’ve been:

Bama, LSU, Ole Miss, KY (home this year)

TAMU, ARK, AUB, EAST Team (road this year)

Which is why some of our best seasons have been even-numbered years.

 

[Bulldogg31]

Looking at the final SEC West rankings Bama and OM both finished undefeated at home. Arky and TAMU both had one home loss, LSU was 5-2, and both Auburn and State were 4-3 at home.

I do think Bama and LSU probably have the best home field advantage in the SEC West, but I would have said Auburn was next and OM was last.

Who knows? I’d love to see us protect our house better in the future, but a more veteran team may provide that.

 

[Noname.sixpack]

We need more cowbell!

 

[BossDawg78]

If only there were some way our fans could create a sharp, irritating sound that could disrupt the communication of opposing teams. Something so obnoxious that the league would pass special rules about it, and opposing coaches would complain when we ignored those rules....

Lets get our best engineers on it!

Not talking about cowbells and having to "ring responsibly." Nobody would ever know about our patented "quarterback/strategic player disruption system".....shhhhhhhh. It's able to pinpoint a particular player and blast them with flashy lasers and obnoxious sounds. What's the player gonna do? Complain about something he can't identify? (***?)

 

[Go Budaw]

Actually Bama and LSU are on the same rotation for us. Either both on the road (even-numbered years) or both at home (odd years).

For the past decade or more we’ve been:

Bama, LSU, Ole Miss, KY (home this year)

TAMU, ARK, AUB, EAST Team (road this year)

Which is why some of our best seasons have been even-numbered years.

That’s right….brain fart on my end. In any case, we’re looking at 2-2 in those odd years if we are lucky. In even years, we had 2020 which you can simply throw out for obvious reasons, 2018 where we went 3-1 with an underachieving team, 2016 we went 2-2 in a rebuilding year, 2014 we went 4-0, 2012 we went 4-0 against 4 pretty mediocre to bad teams, 2010 we went 2-2 with both losses being to Top 10 teams including the national champions.

That 2012 and 2014 stretch is pretty misleading, as we went 8-0 those 2 years but only played one team at home that finished ranked in the top 25. Every other year, 3-1 has been the ceiling even without Alabama and LSU. Even with an LSU win in 2017, we still only went 2-2. Overall I feel like the advantage is about what it should be. At the end of the day, its a 40% smaller stadium than the rest of the league for the most part, and the game has changed a lot with hurry up offenses that get plays in by signals and have quick snap counts that aren’t affected by noise in the stadium.