What happened to the Huskers' home-field advantage?
Nebraska has consistently performed below expectation at home over the past decade. Why? I have some theories.
Huh, I thought as I kept scrolling and scrolling. I didn’t expect to find a calculation of Nebraska’s home-field advantage near the top of the rankings for 2024, but I wouldn’t have guessed it was 120th either.
Those rankings come from the Action Network, which uses a weighted model to look at against-the-spread performance over the previous 10 years (80% of the formula) and three years (20%). Straight-up wins are all that matter in the end, but ATS data dials in a little more closely to performance. Are teams outperforming the spread at home (the expectation, given home-field advantage) or are they underperforming?
The industry standard for home-field advantage, so to speak, is usually 2.5 points. It’s the number I used for this analysis reverse engineering some power ratings, and it’s the number this Action Network model works from as a baseline. Teams are adjusted up or down, based on performance, from 2.5.
Nebraska is 25-39-2 ATS at Memorial Stadium since 2014, a .391 winning percentage that only outpaces Vanderbilt among the power conference teams. The Huskers’ underperformed by 3.2 points on average. Since 2021, Nebraska is 9-12 ATS (.429) at home, which at least bumps the Huskers up to 89th nationally, but still isn’t great.
Combine the two time frames, and the Huskers’ home-field edge isn’t the assumed 2.5 points, it’s 1.5 points for 2024 per the Action Network calculations.1
While we all understand the look-back period here isn’t exactly capturing Husker football at high tide, it’s still somewhat surprising to see Nebraska rank this low given the one unassailable with this program right now is undying (and extremely patient) fan support, and the one constant is a sold-out2 Memorial Stadium.
What has happened to the Huskers’ home-field advantage over the past decade?
I have a few theories.
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