re: EA Sports College Football 26 Toughest Places to Play

quote:

---

We lose home games all the time.

---

We're 111-6 at home since 2008. We've won 33 of our last 34 home games.

Kyle Field is riding on reputation.

My freshman year, we did this with a stadium that held 30K less people. Today, the damn DJ’s and screens all but negate that.

quote:

---

less than two years ago, they lost to New Mexico State

---

It was a complete failure to take them seriously but, to be fair, Alabama lost to basically the same team last year.

quote:

---

We lose home games all the time.

---

Not very many in the last 15-20 years.

quote:

---

Tend to agree with ya, even considering that Auburn has sucked for a while, but the team you're playing in that stadium matters.

---

Yea, the problem I think they have had with this and the 25 ones is they are probably weighting the team too much in these rankings, thant he environment itself. Is BDS a tough environment to play in? Absolutely, but the majority of it is because you are playing a top 5 team generally. Alabama probably has the same results if they were playing in Protective Life Stadium, but I don't think anyone would argue it would be a top 10 toughest places to play.

Auburn on the other hand, has been going through one of the worst 5 year stretches in program history, and is still one hell of a hard out when playing at home. So, is JHS a less tough place to play because the team you are playing is just not as good? I guess, but for the sake of a ranking like this, that kind of defeats the purpose because you are already rating the team accordingly. Using the same example, I would wager Auburn's results would be even worse if the home stadium was Protective life stadium

There's no good way to define "toughest places to play" because even defining it by home/road splits isn't always a good metric as some teams are just bad on the road (not necessarily "good at home").

Seems like the best way to look at those things is through the comments/rankings of actual coaches and players.

Auburn, LSU, Tennessee, A&M, Florida, Oregon, Penn State seem to always be praised by opponents for environments (in big games, at least) making it more difficult to play good football - which seems like the true marker of "tough to play". Others have their moments (Alabama, Georgia, Carolina, Clemson, Washington), but either due to stadium configuartion, fanbase makeup or big games loud small games sparse crowds, etc they aren't always that way. And past that some have at certain periods seemed to outperform their attendance size/program stature (State, Kansas State, Utah, Virginia Tech). Others are just kind of big but I've really never heard anyone talk about their effect on a game (Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, USC, etc).

Schtate at #25?

Pls.

They're 12-19 in conference games in Davis Wade since 2018.

quote:

---

Alabama had 13 regular season losses from 2010-2023. 6 of them were home losses, aka 46%.

From 2011-2023, 50% of the losses were home games.

---

That's still not losing home games "all the time"

It just points to what an insane machine we were in terms of being awesome all the time and the fact that typical things that effect programs/teams did not effect us (let downs vs bad teams, home/road, etc). It's no coincidence that we started losing/playing close games vs unranked teams and having much better home/road splits when Saban was clearly starting to struggle with keeping teams together the last few seasons.

Once we started looking like "everyone else" in terms of mentality and all that we started falling in line with regular programs in that aspect, too.

quote:

---

Ole Miss has lost 2 games at home in 3 seasons but somehow Davis Wade is a tougher place to play

---

To be fair, its those damn cow bells

ETA: but yea kind of goes to my point. They are really inconsistant when it comes to juding the environment vs the team performance. They use performance to justify some to put them higher but then others almost ignore it completely.