College Football 2011: 10 Most Overrated Home-Field Advantages

In college football, it is always nice to play a big game at home.  The benefits offered against opponents outweigh any negatives and offer a provide of possibilities.

Some venues today are regarded as black holes that other teams just don't want to get sucked into. Their reputations for fans clobbering opponents with their voices are unrivaled.  

But do things actually work out that way?

Not always.  And here's the top 10 pretenders when it comes to home-field advantage in college football 2011.

Florida's "The Swamp"

The saying goes that in The Swamp...ONLY GATORS get out alive!

Well, 2011 has seen numerous Gator hunters ride their air boats into The Swamp and travel away fat and happy.

Alabama and Georgia beat the Gators on their home turf.  Those are very good teams, so it's hardly an overrated venue, right?

I went with that conclusion for a while, too, until three-loss FCS school Furman showed up.  Sure, Florida won the game, but not after Furman hung 32 points on the Gators.  

Without Tim Tebow around, all we've seen in The Swamp are a bunch of sweet, little British geckos trying to sell us car insurance, not Gators.  

Oregon's Autzen Zoo

Players and media personalities who have traveled to the Oregon Ducks home turf will tell you it's one of the loudest places on the planet.  That's quite a bold statement.

I, however, am a realist.  Maybe the acoustics are nice and amplify the crowd noise, but the place can't even seat 60,000.  

They may be loud, but underdog USC strolled in this year and crushed the Ducks' title hopes.  It's also worth mentioning that seven-loss Washington State showed up and gave them a run for their money.

Other than their loss to now No. 1-ranked LSU on the road, Oregon's worst games of the year came at home.

Oklahoma's Gaylord-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium

The Sooners are a great team year in and year out, and they are always blooming with NFL talent.

But it's never quite enough, is it?

This year, everyone had Oklahoma pegged to play for the Big One.  

The Texas Tech Red Raiders had something to say about that, and Oklahoma's vaunted 85,000-strong could do nothing to help their beloved Sooners stop the six-loss team's passing attack.

I guess as long as Bob Stoops is around, Gaylord just wont be a scary place to visit.  

Michigan's "The Big House"

Michigan Stadium has been averaging around 112,000 attendees this year, but where has it gotten them?

The Wolverines' two losses came during road games, but they started the season with five straight home games.  Only one was against a respectable opponent, Notre Dame, and Michigan rode a miracle to victory.  

If anything, their home-field advantage has been wasted and is largely unproven lately.

They host a big crowd, but we need to see some goliaths fall in the Big House to be believers.   It would seem that Michigan Stadium is only spooky when the lights are on.  

Texas' DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium

There was a time when no team wanted to go to Austin to face the Longhorns on their home turf, and maybe we'll see that time again, but at the moment it's a forgettable place to visit as far as the W's and L's are concerned.

It may be the largest football venue in the entire state of Texas, but the only thing I've seen the place host is a plethora of lamenting.  

Texas had the good fortune to play its three biggest games of the year at home and lost.  It's no fun to get embarrassed, but getting embarrassed on your own turf is much worse.

For now, DKR is a place to reflect on the past, as fans eagerly await another Colt McCoy.  Cheer up, Texas fans, his l'il bro' Case plays there now.

Penn State's Happy Valley

Happy Valley has become a misnomer of sorts.  It's now a very sad place in light of the firing of Joe Paterno regarding the atrocities allegedly committed there.

Beaver Stadium is the home of the legendary Penn State White Out, which used to be a very intimidating sight to behold.  

Nowadays, the Valley is just a place the big boys go to beat a middleweight Big Ten team.  

Penn State has been better than usual this year, but is losing their first home game without Joe Paterno on the sidelines a glimpse of the future, or is the growing pains at the start of a new era?

Maybe the new coach will throw the players a bone and let them have names on their jerseys.  No one but Penn State buffs have any clue as to who is on the field.  

Nebraska's Sea of Red

Nebraska's Memorial Stadium is supposed to be a tough venue to play at, but the Sea of Red has done little to help its beloved Cornhuskers achieve anything meaningful.  

They haven't been to a BCS bowl game since 2002 when they played in the Rose Bowl, and they struggled in the Big 12 for nearly a decade.  

2011 is their first year in the Big 10, and Northwestern, one of the worst teams in the Big 10, traveled to Lincoln and put away the Cornhuskers by a three-point margin.  I must give credit to Northwestern; they are notorious for pulling a win out of the hat at the most unlikely times.

Nebraska has racked up four or more losses year after year.  The days of Tommy Frazier are over, and Ndamukong Suh couldn't help them prevent four losses in 2009.  

The future doesn't look any brighter in a growing B1G, and the Sea of Red just isn't frightening anymore.  

LSU's Death Valley

Death Valley.  Now that is a scary name.  Too bad it's just like their mascot and they aren't the only ones with that nickname.  

Tiger Stadium is one of the most dangerous places to visit, and with Les Miles at the helm it's become an elephant graveyard.  Gone are the Bear Bryant days when Alabama dominated LSU every year.

So what makes Death Valley overrated?

The live Bengal tiger, that's what.  

It may seem really cool to have a live tiger representing you on your own turf, but all I see is a 500-pound killing machine that's scared to death of all the noise and wants to eat every single person in the stadium.

Death Valley is the last place in the world you want to visit, but a caged, endangered animal that wants to gobble me just doesn't do it for me.  

To be fair, Mike the Tiger lives a pretty good life with his own 15,000-square-foot apartment, and in reality, I doubt he wants to eat anybody...maybe.  

Boise State's Smurf Turf

The legendary Smurf Turf.  Boise State fans love it, while critics and victims of it decry it as "unfair."

The proof is in the pudding, and until TCU came to town, the Broncos had one hell of a home win streak. They hadn't lost a home conference game since 1998.

But not all pudding is good.  Look at rice pudding, or tapioca.  Where's the butterscotch?  Boise State has been a great team for years, but a big win streak against some of the weakest competition in all of college football just isn't very impressive.

Boise State fans will tell you it's because the big boys are afraid to travel to Boise, but it really has more to do with what location is more profitable.  

Bronco Stadium can barely hold 30,000 people and, regardless of acoustics, that just isn't a lot of noise compared to 100,000 crazy people.  

Nice home stadium record, Boise.  Now, can we have a year where you don't lose half of your tough games?

Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium

This one kills me.  It really does.  I'm a big Alabama fan and will surely receive heat for this one; my brethren will cry, "Heretic!"

But I'm a realist.  This place is overrated.  It's a tough place to play, one of the toughest in the nation, but overrated.

It's a great venue, and seats just over 100,000 people, but the "home-field advantage" hasn't been all that beneficial when it really counted.  

In 2009, the Tide almost lost at home to an eventual six-loss Tennessee team and needed two blocked field goals by the fattest man in college football at the time, Terrance Cody. 

In 2010, Alabama was ahead by 24 points when they hosted the future national champions, the Auburn Tigers.  Then a meltdown occurred and Auburn won 28-27.  

2011 had the Tide host the LSU Tigers in the "Game of the Century."  The crowd's marked displeasure with Alabama kicker Cade Foster helped him miss three field goals, and LSU won 9-6.

Did I also mention the Tide's No. 1-ranked rushing defense gave up 302 rushing yards against a FCS school, at home?

Bryant-Denny stadium is one of the most difficult places to travel to and win at, but if it's a big game, you just might ride home victorious.