Toughest Home Stadiums for 2009

◊ ZN's 2009 Penn State Football Preview - National Outlook

Penn State last week released its official 2009 football schedule. One of the highlights will be when Penn State hosts Ohio State in Beaver Stadium on Nov. 7, 2009, it will mark the 300th football game played at the Nittany Lions' home venue. But that's not all.

"The Nittany Lions have an impressive 236-57 (80.5) record in the nation's largest stadium (107,282), earning a 26-2 home record since the Michigan State game in 2004."

That got me thinking. So, I dug up home records of other really "tough" places to play. I've compiled those records and win percentages of all the teams that are perceived to boast a formidable home venue. The records span the 2005 thru 2008 seasons. I chose the four years because it's generally accepted that college football goes in four-year "cycles," basically mirroring how long it takes for one recruiting class to go through. Here's what I found:

Best home records, 2005 thru 2008 - FBS.

School__________	Home_Games	Home_Record	Winning_%
Boise St.	25	25-0	1.000
Oklahoma	25	24-1	0.960
USC	24	23-1	0.958
Penn St.	28	26-2	0.929
Florida	27	25-2	0.925
TCU	23	21-2	0.913
Ohio St.	28	25-3	0.893
Texas Tech	27	24-3	0.888
Texas	25	22-3	0.880
Va. Tech	24	21-3	0.875
Wisconsin	27	23-4	0.852
West Va.	26	22-4	0.846
LSU	29	24-5	0.827
Oregon	25	20-5	0.800
Utah	24	19-5	0.792
Georgia	28	22-6	0.785
Tennessee	27	19-8	0.703

As you can see, some of the more highly touted stadiums, like Georgia's Sanford Stadium and Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, aren't as kind to the home squad as we're led to believe. The Boise State is the only team to go undefeated at home during the span.

Now, just for kicks, let's look at how the BigTen conference stacks up.

Best home records, 2005 thru 2008 - BigTen.

School__________	Home_Games	Home_Record	Winning_%
Penn St.	28	26-2	0.929
Ohio St.	28	25-3	0.893
Wisconsin	27	23-4	0.852
Iowa	27	19-8	0.703
Purdue	27	17-10	0.630
Michigan	29	18-11	0.620
MSU	27	16-11	0.593
Northwestern	26	15-11	0.577
Indiana	28	14-14	0.500
Minnesota	26	13-13	0.500
Illinois	25	12-13	0.480

What can we gather from this information? If Penn State's home conference wants to earn back some of the respect lost, the BigTen really, really needs to start better defending its home turf.