North Texas Mean Green Top List of FBS Home Field Advantage

Last week PredictionMachine.com ranked the top home field advantages for all 128 FBS teams. The ranking listed a point advantage that playing at home gives to each team. Ranking number one on that list is the North Texas Mean Green with a 5.94 advantage. While this is quite an accomplishment for a program that generally does not get the home recognition it deserves, it also tells much more about the past and future of this team.

In the four seasons that UNT's Apogee Stadium has been open, the Mean Green have put together a 16-7 home record. This record is complimented by a +280 point differential in the 23 games since the beginning of the 2011 season. These numbers alone are impressive, yet the full value behind the record is seen when looking at the overall record of the Mean Green for the past four seasons.

Although they have managed a winning record at home, North Texas is only 21-27 in that time, so dummy math means only five road wins, which makes it very obvious why the home field advantage of the Mean Green is crucial every time they take the field at Apogee. By the numbers, home field advantage is one of the top contributors to the success of this North Texas football team each year.

Even more staggering is the margin of victory during their home games. Although the Mean Green finished with a 4-8 record in the 2014 season, the team still managed to outscore their opponents by 104 points at home, or 17 per game.

The program and it's fans should be proud of the impact that their home stadium atmosphere has on their team. They should also be interested in the implications that the atmosphere has on their 2015 season. The Mean Green host Rice, Portland State, Western Kentucky, UTSA, and UTEP at home.

Two excellent tests stand out in this batch of home games. The first is the home opener against Rice, who has been a consistent force in the West over the past few years. The second is a Halloween home game against a rapidly forming rival in UTSA which the North Texas fans are already buzzing about. With the exception of Portland State, the remainder of the games could theoretically go either way, which is once again good news for North Texas.

Although not a home game, UNT opens the season at SMU, a school that is about an hour away from Denton, Texas. If the Mean Green faithful can unite together and take the trip down I-35, this could very well be treated as somewhat of a home game for the team.

The Mean Green certainly has reason to celebrate as they read their name atop the Prediction Machine ranking. However, the team and fans of the program should be sure to show up every game to make the home field advantage as impactful as possible in some key toss up games at Apogee this season.