Determining College Football True Road Field Advantage

Determining College Football True Road Field Advantage:

After revealing my annual True Home Field Advantage Ratings in college football earlier this week, I now move on to analyzing the road performance levels of teams. 

Reiterating what I stated earlier this week regarding the importance of understanding how to assign home and road field points in football, anyone who is still assigning the base 2 to 3 points for home field for every game at either level is making a gargantuan mistake. This not only leads to errors in handicapping individual games on any given week, but it also compounds itself in the building of team power ratings, which take into account schedule strength and where a team has played its games. Because of this risk, my own experience on both sides of the counter has led me to build and maintain team-specific home and road field ratings. These are built into the formulas I use to calculate the Power, Effective Strength, and Bettors Ratings in PSW and on VSiN.com.

I explained the many reasons why certain teams have more definitive home-field advantage than others. The same can be said for teams’ performance levels on the road. In my opinion, coaching/preparation level is the leading factor for teams that play best on the road. These teams typically have solid defenses and reliable quarterback play. The other factor that might not be as clearly defined, I feel that a lot of teams that don’t enjoy a massive home-field edge in atmosphere have a tendency to play better on the road as their performance level is more consistent across the board, and not as influenced by game location. Perhaps having more veteran leadership on a team also plays an important role.

To determine which teams hold the best true road field performance levels in college football, I have taken the teams’ logs in true road game since the start of the 2022 season, or essentially the last 3-1/2 seasons. I compared their own average power rating in those games to their opponents’ average power rating, using my actual logged numbers during that span for every game. This margin would be considered the amount they should have won or lost by when meeting on a neutral field, or the expected margin. I then compared this amount to the actual point differential that the team accumulated in those games. Obviously, the teams that had a greater actual differential than expected differential played the “best” on the road. For college teams, the margins went as high as +3.0 for Troy out of the Sun Belt to -8.3 for, believe it or not, Alabama!

No one would ever assign a road field “edge” of 3 points to Troy, as that would outweigh many opponents’ actual home field points. However, it does lend a lot of value to betting the Trojans on the road and in theory, bettors should discount the opponent’s home field points when they are facing head coach Gerad Parker’s team. Surely at this point you are curious, Troy closes its road schedule for the season next Saturday at Southern Miss. Regarding Alabama with a -8.3 true road field (TRF) rating to go along with a 7-12 ATS record, it seems risky to back the Tide any time they hit the road, especially since they play as a -12.3 point road favorite on average. ‘Bama’s season finale at Auburn seems a little more daunting when you consider this data.

The numbers I showed earlier in the week suggest the actual home-field advantage in college football has been about 2.6 points. As I indicated then, the home-field advantage does seem to be trending back upward since it bottomed out in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic and empty stadiums. If you’re using numbers larger or smaller than these, they are probably impacting your betting results negatively, as you’re not getting a true gauge for what it means to play games at home or away.

One important thing to note, I don’t specifically assign the road field ratings in accordance with the order of the True Road Performance numbers you’ll see below on the charts, as I also give strong consideration to the straight up & ATS records. Otherwise, single games where a team won or lost big can falsely impact the overall ratings. That said, with all factors considered, Troy and Notre Dame are my actual top road-rated teams for college, and I deduct 1.0 points off the opponents’ home-field edge when they are hosting these teams. 

Keep in mind that as you interpret the results, as I noted last week in the home study, I have removed the two best and worst point spread losses for every team during the 3-1/2 year span from the calculations. These results are still noted in the SU & ATS records, but they didn’t factor into the formulas or point/line averages.

Let’s take a quick look at some of the other highlights I have found from my college and pro football road field performance study.

College Football Road Field Performance Study Highlights

• Collectively, the conferences with the best overall TRUE road field performance rating are the Big Ten & MAC, both at -2.3. These are the same leagues that topped the last year; it’s interesting that both are primarily Midwest leagues.
  
• Two conferences have collective TRUE Road Performance ratings of less than -3.0 points. They are the Mountain West (-3.4), and ACC (-3.1). Interestingly, neither of these teams were bottom two last year when I conducted this study, as the last year has apparently been rough travels for both leagues.
  
• There are three teams that have lost fewer than five true road games over the last 3-1/2 seasons, and they are Georgia, Ohio State & Oregon. The Buckeyes end the season on the road at Michigan, while Oregon has a season finale at Washington. Tulane and James Madison have also played very well on the road lately, winning at least 73% of their contests.
  
• The worst outright record for any college football team on the road since the start of the 2022 season belongs to UAB, at 1-22. UMass is next at 2-22, while seven other Group of 5 programs share just 3-win records. UAB closes its season next Saturday at Tulsa.
  
• There are three teams that have compiled ATS records better than 70% in college football on the road since the start of the 2022 season. They are Troy (18-5 ATS), UNLV (18-6 ATS), and Notre Dame (12-5 ATS). Charlotte, who we recognized earlier this week as college football’s worst home team unofficially, also owns a 14-6 ATS, 70% mark. Of those four, Charlotte has road games this week and next week, and for the 29^th, Troy is at Southern Miss, UNLV is at Nevada, and Notre Dame is at Stanford.
  
• There have been six college football teams to go under 33% ATS over the last 3-1/2 seasons on the road. They are UAB (6-17 ATS), Utah State (6-15 ATS), Stanford (7-16 ATS), LSU (5-11 ATS), plus USC (6-13 ATS), and Washington (6-13 ATS). This big game to consider among these teams is USC’s trip to Oregon on Saturday.
  
• The three teams that have played to the average biggest point spreads on the road in recent seasons are no surprise, as they have dominated college football this year or in recent seasons. That list is topped by Ohio State (-15.6), Oregon (-14.6), & Georgia (-14.1).
  
• Two teams have been worse than 23-point underdogs on average in road games in recent seasons of college football and they are UMass (+23.9) and Kent State (+23.7).
  
• There have been four college football teams that have averaged more than 33 PPG in their road games over the last 3-1/2 seasons, they are:
• 
  OREGON – 38.6 PPG
• MEMPHIS – 35.2
• NORTH TEXAS – 34.1
• NOTRE DAME – 33.2
  
• There have been five teams in college football that have allowed fewer than 19 PPG in road games since the start of the 2022 season. That list includes:

OHIO STATE – 15.4 PPG
MICHIGAN – 16.1
ARMY – 18.2
MIAMI (OH) – 18.8
PENN STATE – 18.9

• The only two teams that have outscored opponents by 15 PPG or more on the road since 2022 are Oregon (+18.7) & Ohio State (+15.2). No other team has a road point differential of more than 13.5 PPG in that same span.
• Using my formula comparing how much teams have won on the road as compared to how much they were supposed to win by based upon average power ratings, the top teams for true road performance in college football over the last 3-1/2 seasons have been:

1. Troy +3.0
2. Bowling Green +2.7
3. Illinois +2.3
4. Arkansas +2.2
5. Navy +1.8
6. Notre Dame +1.6

Three of these teams are new to the list in 2025, including #1 Troy. Of those six teams, all have road games remaining, including this Saturday, with Illinois at Wisconsin, and Arkansas at Texas.

• The teams with the worst true road performance ratings in all of college football based upon their road statistics over the last 3-1/2 seasons have been:

1. Alabama -8.3
2. Oklahoma State -8.1
3. Appalachian State -7.6
4. UAB -7.3
5. Florida State -6.8
6. Minnesota -6.8

When you think of a team like Alabama being on this list, you need to consider that the expectations are quite high for the Tide in every game, and oddsmakers usually shade lines toward them. As I mentioned before, they have a huge road finale in the Iron Bowl at Auburn. OSU is at UCF this Saturday, UAB is at Tulsa on the 29^th, Florida State has a pair of road games remaining, including Friday night at NC State, and Minnesota is at Wrigley Field Saturday to take on Northwestern.

You will find the entire list of all 136 FBS teams and their road performance on the chart below. They are sorted in order of true road performance rating.

VIEW COLLEGE TRUE ROAD FIELD ADVANTAGE CHART HERE