Home cookin' in the Pac-10 conference
Washington plays well at home and on the road
By Malamute, 16 February 2002

In the last article on home-field advantage, we looked at the conference teams' won and lost records over a period of twelve years, which extended from 1990 to 2001. The analysis included all games played, for both out-of-conference and in-conference games. Over that period of time, Washington, Oregon State and Oregon had the most significant home-field advantage, each school winning 24% more of its games at home than it did on the road. See Table 1 below (the last column in the table shows the percentage difference between the team's won/lost record at home and away).

 

Table 1. Home and away records for all games played during the last 12 years. (Conference and out-of-conference)

 

Team	Home	Pct.	Rank	Away	Pct.	Diff.
UW	61-11-1	.85	1	36-23-0	.61	.24
UO	56-18-0	.76	2	31-29-0	.52	.24
OSU	31-38-1	.45	10	13-49-0	.21	.24
UCLA	48-21-0	.70	3	32-31-0	.51	.19
Cal	35-33-0	.52	9	21-43-1	.33	.19
Arizona	48-24-0	.67	4	30-31-0	.49	.18
ASU	46-28-0	.62	5	26-31-0	.46	.16
WSU	37-30-0	.55	8	27-39-0	.41	.14
Stanford	42-28-1	.60	7	30-30-1	.50	.10
USC	47-27-2	.61	6	32-30-2	.52	.09

Because there is more parity in the league nowadays, we decided to look at the home/away records for the teams in the conference over the last five years (1997-2001).    

 

The table below is organized by overall win percentage for those games played exclusively in the Pac-10. Washington and Oregon lead the conference in overall win percentage, each winning 70% of its games over a period extending from 1997 to 2001. 

 

According to the table, Oregon, UCLA and Oregon State have the most significant home-field advantage among the Pac-10 schools; each school has won 30% more of its games at home in the Pac-10 than it has on the road (see the next to last column). 

Table 2. Home/away records from 1997-2001 (Pac-10 games only)

As the table shows, Oregon (85%), Washington (75%) and UCLA (75%) have the best home-field records. Washington plays better on the road than any other Pac-10 school, having won 65% of its road games. Hence, the percentage difference for its games played at home and on the road are less than that of the other two schools. 

As the conference becomes more balanced, the home-field advantage will become more significant. As the statistics portend that does not bode well for teams such as Cal, Arizona and USC, while favoring OSU, which under Coach Dennis Erickson, is up and smiting those that once smote them. J