MplsBison
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RE: It's Official: #1 Clemson, #2 Alabama, #3 MSU, #4 OK
(12-08-2015 09:55 AM)quo vadis Wrote: (12-07-2015 03:21 PM)adcorbett Wrote: (12-07-2015 03:09 PM)MplsBison Wrote: (12-07-2015 02:37 PM)adcorbett Wrote: (12-07-2015 12:26 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote: But that's the point - it DOESN'T ever end up being a 50/50 split of fans when one of the teams is that much closer than the other (especially when you're talking about a fan base like OU that would travel well even for long distances).
His scenario leaves out local fans. If the Cotton Bowl seats 100,000, and each team is given 35,000 tickets, another 30,000 seats are going to someone, locals, sponsors, etc. And many of those, if they happen to be local, are far more likely to be OU fans, then Alabama fans.
Bowl games, any bowl game, do not split the tickets 50/50.
Nonsense. They have this thing called the internet. Even in Alabama! As weird as that sounds.
Alabama fans are at least as likely to snatch up all the tickets as OU fans.
50-50 split in Dallas this year.
Jeez, it's like talking to a brick wall. You do realize that tickets did not just go on sale yesterday for this, right? Many thousands of the tickets have already been sold, to locals and sponsors. Some buy them to go, some to resell. And guess what, many of them are already fans of Big 12 teams, if not Oklahoma outright. That means many of those tickets are already in the hands of the people who will be attending the game, and they will be rooting for Oklahoma. Even if Alabama fans bought every available ticket, key word being available, they would be outnumbered, unless mysteriously the 25,000 - 30,000 local tickets already sold just happened to already be Alabama fans.
One factor to remember is that HFA isn't all, or even mostly, about fans yelling in the stands. Probably the biggest negative aspect is that usually, with a week between games, the visiting team has the travel hassle and then lack of familiarity with the field and stadium. Travel, from the moment you have to pack for the team bus to the airport, to the time you settle in at your hotel in the distant city, is a drain mentally and physically -jet lag, time zone differences, being stuffed in uncomfortable seats, etc. - and eats significantly into game preparation. And QBs talk about the differences in depth perception and sight-lines that are created in different stadiums thanks to different seating configurations, etc. And both QBs and kickers know the cross-winds that tend to develop in their home stadiums.
But in a bowl situation, that aspect of of being the road team is essentially eliminated, because both teams can arrive many days in advance, plenty of time to get over jet lag, adjust to the hotel, go out to the facility and practice. And neither team has the in-depth knowledge of sight-lines and winds, because even if OU is a lot closer to Dallas than Alabama, it's not OU's actual home facility either.
Plus, even the fans in the stands aspect is significantly different. From the point of view of being able to call signals and general team communication, there's a BIG difference between a true Oklahoma home game, where the crowd in Norman is going to be 97% pro-Oklahoma with a tiny visitor's section, and a bowl game at Dallas, where the crowd is likely to be 65 - 35 pro-Oklahoma. 65 - 35 doesn't put the other team at nearly the same noise disadvantage as 97 - 3 does, and plus there are enough of their fans to create significant noise for OU as well.
So when you add it all up, while there is an advantage for Oklahoma in playing an Alabama in Dallas, it's a very weak form of "home field" advantage. Not really worth worrying about.
That's probably why there doesn't seem to be much correlation in recent years between big bowl game results and this alleged advantage. E.g., at the Sugar Bowl, Alabama wiped out LSU when LSU allegedly had a big home advantage, and then the last two years, Oklahoma and Ohio State beat Alabama, despite the Sugar Bowl being SEC territory.
And in the Cotton Bowl, we see the same thing. In recent years, Ole Miss beat Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, Missouri beat Oklahoma State, Michigan State beat Baylor, and LSU beat Texas A/M. Dallas is in the heart of Big 12 country and yet the much-closer Big 12 teams have struggled to beat SEC and B1G teams traveling much farther and with presumably significantly fewer fans in the stands.
Except in this case it would've been a 50-50 split crowd. And, as you note, any advantage from Alabama having to travel would be nullified.
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