Funny stuff but the raucousness of the crowd is a small part of home field advantage.
Travel effects on the body accompanied by poor sleep and general uncomfortabe environment are one aspect.
the other
Is refs.
They favor the home team likely due to the crowd but I'm not sure if the intensity of the crowd could increase this effect or not.
How would you know that raucousness is a small part of home field advantage? I’d guess that it’s a big factor.
DNC is saying that Stanford has a better HFA than other good teams. The reasons you give (travel, uncomfortable environment, refs) hold true for every team’s HFA and wouldn’t explain the Stanford anomaly.
Maybe grass? PAC-12 teams not used to grass playing surface and Stanford’s playing style less affected by slow grass.
My REAL guess is that Stanford doesn't actually have a better than average HFA and the reason they do statistically is just noise (statistical)/anomaly.
However, even having an average HFA goes against the conventional wisdom. Every time we play there someone inevitably says it shouldn't be difficult because their HFA is poor. And then we lose. Like most other top 25 teams do there.
The reality is crowd noise is a factor but probably an overrated one. The factors Fremont laid out are much bigger issues, and why an alleged "Neutral" game in Atlanta was anything butt, even if we could have had equal crowd support.
Yeah, this. Fooled by randomness and small sample size.
Scorecasting (kind of an old book now) had some interesting statistics on HFA across different sports. Their conclusion was that it was ENTIRELY due to referees.
I don't buy that entirely just based on my own life experience traveling to away games- your legs just don't feel as fresh after sitting in a car or plane for hours.
Also there are plenty of studies showing that we don't sleep well the first night in an unusual environment.
Maybe professional support staff can mitigate those factors but I wouldn't discount them entirely.
Crowd noise however I think is quite overrated just because it is the most obviously visible component of HFA and because we like to feel important as fans. Causing false starts is meaningful but beyond that I don't know. There very well may be a psychological component to defending one's turf but I don't know how to quantify that.