There is no place like, on the road?!!

When talking sports, especially college football, how does a team gain a competitive advantage?  Initially you might say that the home team has the advantage because they have thousands of enthusiastic and ecstatic fans supporting them.  But lets pause right there!  Ponder this question, does playing at your home stadium actually give you a competitive advantage?  In my opinion it does not!  When you play a  game on the road, you do not have any distractions for two days. You travel and relax one day, and the next day you eat and rest until four hours before the game.  This allows the team to get prepared mentally! However, if you are playing at home there are countless distractions.  For example, the day before the game the media wants to interview everyone associated with the team, from the quarterback to the water boy!  However I think the most significant distraction is when a college football player is walking to class on Friday before the game and everyone is telling him how great he is and how the team is going to destroy the visiting team.  Believe it or not this is a major distraction! I feel that for this reason alone, the benefits of playing at home have been trumped by the "clutter" that surrounds a college campus the day before a big game.

Here is definitive evidence to support my opinion.  New Mexico State Aggies opened the 2011 football season at home versus Ohio University and lost 44-24.  The following week the Aggies traveled to the Twin Cities to face the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers, and won the game 28-21.  I say this respectfully but University of Minnesota has a better athletic program than Ohio University, so it is not a matter of the Aggies playing an inferior football team.  The following week New Mexico State is at home playing against University of Texas El Paso and loses the game 16 - 10.  This weekend, September 24, 2011, New Mexico State plays against San Jose State in San Jose.  If my hypothesis is correct, and I believe it is, New Mexico State will be victorious.  Check back Sunday for a recap!