OSU homefield advantage not what we thought
The Oklahoma State-Texas football series always seems to deliver the unusual. Close games when you’re thinking rout; routs when you’re thinking close games. The only constant is a Longhorn victory. But here’s another kooky element to the Oklahoma State-Texas series: the Cowboys seem to play as well in Austin as they do in Stillwater. Which is most definitely not the case with most teams and most series.
OSU now is 2-22 vs. Texas and 1-13 in the Big 12 era. But look at the recent games in Stillwater. Discounting the 38-35 classic in 2007, the ‘Horns largely have won easily this decade: a 41-14 drubbing Saturday night, 47-28 in 2005 (despite OSU’s 28-9 lead, that’s the one blown lead everyone expected), 55-16 in 2003, 45-17 in 2001, 34-21 in 1999.
Meanwhile, down in Austin, we had 28-24 in 2008 in a great game, 36-10 in 2006, 56-35 (after OSU led 35-7, a comeback that really was a stunner), 17-15 in 2002, 42-7 in 2000, 37-34 in 1998.
So that’s three close calls for Texas in the last six games at Austin, plus a game in which the Longhorns had to rally from a 28-point deficit. Meanwhile, at Stillwater, there’s one close call, one decent game (34-21) and one big comeback.
Everyone says Stillwater is a tough place to play, and I believe it. But does the evidence support such a theory? In Bedlam, obviously the answer is yes. Against Texas Tech, yes. The home team has won every game in that series since 2001.
But against Texas A&M this decade, OSU is 2-3 at home and 2-3 at College Station, with both routs and close calls in both venues both ways.
The North Division is tougher to analyze, since there are only half as many games. But OSU’s win over Missouri on Oct. 17 was the first home victory in the series since 1993. Home teams are 3-4 in the last seven OSU-Kansas games. And home teams have lost the last four OSU-Colorado games. During the Big 12 era, home teams are 5-1 in the OSU-Kansas State series and 5-2 in the OSU-Iowa State series.
Big 12 competition suggests that OSU’s home advantage and road disadvantage is not as great as maybe we’ve been led to believe.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Your headline had 2 words that do not belong. The headline should have read “OSU Not What We Thought”.
For some time Berry has run short on substance in his columns. Nothing here but making stats work for you. Does he not bump into real column ideas, subjects that take more initiative than interpreting stats for us? I would think so.
From the highway, Texas stadium looks like a shizty place to play. They should move their home games to Jerry’s place. Much more fitting for a class team like the longhorns.
Quite frankly, your posting of the home team’s advantage in the O State – Iowa State series is interesting in that it would appear this could be a dangerous game for O State on the road. For those of us who think this could be a trap game– I wonder what O State’s record on the road is after losing to Texas the week before from say the Bob Simmons era to the present?
Interesting, in that Simmons was 4-8 versus Texas and OU, Les Miles was 2-6, and now Mike Gundy is 0-9.
What should we decipher from this? Was Simmons just lucky OU was down at that time or is Mike Gundy out of his element coaching against Mack Brown and Bob Stoops? Or is the talent level discrepancy too much for O State to overcome, yet not for Mike Leach at Tech?
To me–that would be an interesting and topical column.
MJ
I could have read this wrong, “In Bedlam, obviously the answer is yes.”… referring to the fact that Stillwater is a tough place to play. OU is 37-6-5 at Stillwater. How does that make it a tough place to play?