I have noticed that there are significant home/road splits in the game when simming. Probably something should be there, but they seem very potent. However, I truly do not understand why there are home and road teams for conference championship games. They are played mostly on neutral sites. So why should home/road effects impact this game? Yet they assuredly appear to.
To test my hypothesis, I simmed 200 AAC championship games between Cincinnati and my Houston team. Cincinnati was home, despite a lesser conference record (7-1 vs. 8-0). Cincinnati won 197 times. That is NOT random variance between evenly matched teams. It looks like home field in conference title games can significantly impact one's career trajectory.