There’s No Place Like Home: Estimating Intra-Conference Home Field Advantage in College Football Using a Bayesian Piecewise Linear Model

This article presents a method to measure the impact of the home field advantage for intra-conference college football. The method models longitudinal data across several years while utilizing a unique home field parameter for each individual team. Additionally, two novel yet intuitive measures of home field advantage are proposed. As a case study of the method and the definitions of home field advantage, teams with the best and worst home field advantages within their respective conferences are determined.