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Penn State football's home field advantage among nation's best over last 10 years, data model shows: Newsstand

Greg Pickelby: Greg Pickel02/12/24GregPickel
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(Photo by Steve Manuel/The Football Letter)

Penn State news, notes, and updates for Feb. 12 include statistical proof of the Lions’ home-field advantage at Beaver Stadium, headlines of the day, and more.

It’s time to dive into Monday’s top tweets and headlines about the Nittany Lions and college athletics.

Penn State tweets of the day

We start with a look at a new data model from Collin Wilson of The Action Network. He aims to quantify who has the best (and worst) home field advantage in college football. His just-published model includes a 10-year sample size, a three-year data set, and the numbers from 2023.

“There are many different factors to determine home-field advantage, from stadium capacity to straight-up records,” Wilson writes. “At the Action Network, we base home-field advantage on one metric: Does a team cover the closing number from oddsmakers? While most outlets assume 2.5 points for the home team, our calculations use a tangent to determine the final numbers. Based on against-the-spread numbers from a three- and 10-year sample, a Taylor series is used to deviate from the standard home-field advantage.

“The 10-year sample accounts for 80% of the deviation from 2.5 points, while the remaining 20% consists of the previous three years. While head coaches and recruiting classes come and go, this formula provides approximately 60 data points over a decade to determine home-field advantage.”

Since James Franklin took over at Penn State in 2014, the Lions are at No. 13 nationally when it comes to covering the point spread at Beaver Stadium. They check in at 57.60 percent in that category. Since 2021, they have a 65 percent cover rate at home, which is good for seventh best in the country. Last year, Wilson’s model gave Penn State 3.1 extra points at home. In 2024, he’s upping that number to 3.4, which is seventh in the country. It’s tied with West Virginia, which the Lions open their 2024 season against in Morgantown. LSU leads the way at 3.9.

Headlines of the day

Penn State CBs look to Porter for inspiration: Lolley, Steelers.com

Offseason Overview: Where the Penn State linebackers can improve in 2024: Carr, BWI

Penn State-Iowa: What did Tom Brands, Cael Sanderson say after the Lions topped the Hawkeyes?: Pickel, BWI

Penn State Super Bowl trivia: How many PSU point-scorers can you name?: Flounders, PennLive

Quote of the day

“Honestly, we just have to stay consistent and keep doing what we’ve been doing. It’s not like we had a bad season. But, we have bigger goals and our standard is way higher than that. We just have to be consistent and focus on the finer details of things and just fine tune where we feel like we were lacking on the previous year.”

—Former PSU DE Adisa Isaac on The Andy Staples Show about how the Lions can improve moving forward.

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