As Penn State lore would have it, State College becomes Pennsylvania's third-largest city during home football weekends. With 110,000 fans in Beaver Stadium and thousands tailgating ticketless, that statistic doesn't seem improbable.
Those numbers, coupled with the intensity of the fanbase, produce volume. For many fans, the belief is their jumping and screaming will actually help vault Penn State to a win. And, as a recent study indicated, they just might.
The home crowd may subconsciously influence some referees at the expense of the visiting team, according to a Harvard University study conducted last April. The study, which examined results of more than 5,000 English Premier League soccer matches, may legitimately compare to big college football programs like Penn State, the study's author said.
"The just shear amount of noise and all of that are probably subconsciously affecting the way the referee views the game," said Ryan Boyko, a former Harvard research assistant who conducted the study. "The way you view reality is through this screen that can be affected by any of these external factors. If you hear everybody gasping, or everybody screaming, or doing this, it can affect they way you view what just happened."
The idea that results could be suspect because of the home crowd's influence cuts at the root of competition. Ultimately, fans believe what they're seeing is legitimate. And when that's called into question, the validity of sports is called into question.
To preserve that competitive purity, the NCAA, Big Ten and other organizations have official reviews and processes to help ensure the balance isn't skewed. That's why not all have put stock into the study.
"To apply that heavy-duty pressure from a large, biased crowd would affect the thinking process of officials or replay people, I just don't think it's accurate," said Dave Parry, the Big Ten and NCAA coordinator of football.
Boyko, a 23-year-old working toward an evolutionary anthropology Ph.D. at University of California-Davis, studied matches from 1992 to 2006. The study looked at score, who was home vs. away, the referee, crowd attendance, fouls for each team and penalty kicks for each team. It examined variation from referee to referee. And though the study centered around soccer, he said, the conclusions could foreseeably apply to college football.
"I would think that by the time where you get to the level where you're a Big Ten football ref, if you're making conscious decisions you're going to be able to make them on their own merits," Boyko said. "I think it's really only when you're forced to make extremely quick judgments. You can't extract the crowd and make the decisions in a completely unbiased way."
The study
The split-second decisions make the difference, Boyko said.
"If everyone is reacting one way to an event, it makes you even as a professional in a split-section decision, react that way without having a conscious bias," Boyko said. "We're not arguing that the referees have a conscious [bias] -- I want the home team to win."
It's about those abrupt moments: Was it pass interference? Did he step out of bounds? Was that a fumble?
"You put yourself in the shoes of someone who has to make a split-second decision," Boyko said. "Whether you're going to throw the penalty flag, when you're going to blow your whistle, when you're watching this play happen. ... You can feel your senses get heightened and all that, and it might very well make you more likely to blow the whistle."
Dr. Terry Deacon, a professor of biological anthropology and neuroscience at the University of California-Berkley, likened it to laugh-track audio on TV sitcoms.
The laughter is piped in because it gives the impression the comedy is that much funnier.
"It is a social phenomena," Deacon said. "We human beings are very sensitive to aligning our emotions to the crowd around us."
Really, it's an idea that's evolved through time. He referenced the ververt monkey, which has distinct alarm signals to warn against predators. The calls create panic among the animals and their shrieking becomes contagious.
"That doesn't mean that the referee's decision has evolved from that, but the bias in his emotional state reflects something in our evolutionary past," Deacon said.
It's what anthropologists might call an "archaic trait."
Whether or not all of this would have an impact on the outcome of major college football games is not clear.
In the study, Boyko found that for every additional 10,000 spectators, the advantage for the home team increased by about 0.1 goals in the soccer matches. So the bigger the stadium, the more potential for advantage.
However, that's not easy to measure in college football. There's less parity in the college game, where teams at the highest and lowest ends compete at distinct levels. Any subconscious bias would probably not affect the outcome of pre-conference blowouts, Boyko said, but could impact the closer conference games toward the middle and end of season.
Also, teams generally play each other once a season and therefore aren't exposed to the variation of playing in two stadiums with two distinctly aligned crowds.
For some of those reasons, subconscious officiating bias would be easier to detect in the National Football League.
"My impression is that professional football has somewhere around three points a game on average home-field advantage," Boyko said. "In the pros that's probably a decently big deal."
Of the 50 referees examined in the study, only six to eight were found to have no bias. Those officials were veteran. Exclusively hiring experienced officials might be one way to avoid the home-crowd effect.
Additionally, removing the decision-making from the field, where the sound is most intense, would be a way to reduce the bias derived from the cheering. Or, Boyko suggested, have
important decisions reviewed.
Refs respond
Seeing problems in its existing system, the Big Ten implemented video review in 2004 with experimental permission from the NCAA. The entire nation had clearance from the NCAA to use the replay system with experimental permission.
The replay system has been constantly tweaked since its inception. In fact, a bulletin was sent out last week allowing for the review of field goals. That rule, for example, was spawned after an ACC game a few weeks ago when an official flinched and missed the call because of a low kick, forcing the judgment to go to the booth.
"Replay has helped immensely," Parry said. "Without question it's been a very valuable tool for us. We've corrected some mistakes we've made, and I think it's elevated the level of confidence the pubic has, the in-house attendance has and the coaches have."
Through the opening four weeks of this season, the Big Ten had 30 games with replay, according to information provided by conference officials. Twenty-nine plays were reviewed with stoppage in that time. Seven calls were reversed.
The negative with replay is stoppage time, which cuts into the flow of the game. The national average is 1 minute, 46 seconds. The Big Ten average is 1:49.
"If you get it right, that's justice," Parry said. "That's why we have it."
The Big Ten has seven officiating crews, which travel together as units. Most officials have a regular job and officiate on the side. (Referees make $1,025 per game, with $360 in expense money for the weekend.) However, Parry said, that doesn't mean that the job isn't taken seriously.
The Big Ten grades each of its 55 officials on a scale of 35. Their every move is scrutinized. In fact, Parry said, the officials get together immediately after every game to review the game tape on site. If there is a glaring problem, the official at issue and Parry speak Sunday morning. Also, the officials and Parry have a conference call at 7 a.m. every Wednesday.
So, to Parry, the notion an official might express a bias toward the home team -- even a subconscious bias -- isn't feasible.
"If the error would consistently favor the home team, we'd get rid of that guy," Parry said.
Regardless, Boyko said, the mere idea that 110,000 fans at Beaver Stadium might affect the game heightens their relationship with the action on the field.
"That's part of the beauty of being a spectator at a game. Maybe you do influence the outcome," he said. "I think a lot of people would like to think that."
