Defending champion Michigan will host new title favorite No. 1 Oregon on Saturday. Let’s take a look at the latest matchup predictions from an analytical model that simulates games.
Oregon remained perfect with a dominant win over Illinois and has outscored its last two opponents 73-9 on a passing attack that averages exactly 300 yards per game.
Michigan improved to 3-2 in Big Ten play after eliminating Sparty last week, but still hasn’t scored more than 28 points in a game since the opener, ranking 130th in passing and 110th in scoring.
Looking ahead to this week’s game, let’s take a look at the latest college football predictions from the Football Power Index computer prediction model.
The model simulates every NCAA college football game 20,000 times and uses key analytics from both teams and picks winners based on an expected scoring margin per game.
As expected, the simulations favor the Ducks over the Wolverines in this matchup.
Oregon is expected to win the match by a majority 77.8 percent of the most recent computer simulations of the matchup.
That leaves Michigan as the presumptive winner in the remaining series 22.2 percent from sims.
Overall, the Ducks came out ahead in 15,560 of the game’s index calculations, while the Wolverines beat Oregon in the other 4,440 of the predictions.
How does that translate into an expected margin of victory in the game? Expect things to be closer than some projections suggest.
That is expected to be Oregon 11.3 points better then Michigan on the same field in the latest simulations of the game, and with both teams competing against each other, according to the model’s prediction.
If so, that wouldn’t be enough for the Ducks to cover the spread.
That’s because Oregon has a 15.5 points favorite against Michigan, according to the updated rules on FanDuel Sportsbook.
FanDuel lists the total at 45.5 points for the game (over -108, under -112).
And it set up the moneyline odds for Oregon -820 and for Michigan +550 to win outright.
A large number of bettors expect the Ducks to dominate the Wolverines, according to the latest consensus spread picks for the game.
Oregon gets 66 percent of the bets to win the game and cover the point spread.
The other 34 percent of betting odds, the Michigan project will either win outright in an upset or lose the game by 15 or fewer points.
Oregon is the first among the Big Ten teams with one 87.6 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff, according to FPI statistics.
That model gives the Ducks a total earnings forecast of 11.6 games this season.
Michigan ranks seventh in the Big Ten with a 0.1 percent shot at the playoff, but should be in the postseason 88.3 percent probably playing in a bowl game.
The index predicts that UM will win 6.3 games in ’24.
Football Power Index (FPI) college football rankings and computer forecasting models are a measure of team strength that predicts a team’s future performance.
Rankings and score predictions are based on 20,000 simulations of a team’s season and games, using a combination of key analytics including year-to-date scores, quality of opponents, team talent, recruiting and a team’s schedule.
Teams are not ranked by talent as in other rankings, but based on an expected points margin per game against an average team on a neutral field.
First place votes in brackets
- Oregon (61)
- Georgia (1)
- Penn State
- State of Ohio
- Miami
- Texas
- Tennessee
- Notre Dame
- BYU
- Texas A&M
- Clemson
- The state of Iowa
- Indiana
- Alabama
- Boise State
- LSU
- State of Kansas
- Pittsburgh
- Ole ma’am
- SMU
- Army
- Washington State
- Colorado
- Illinois
- Missouri
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The game odds are updated periodically and are subject to change.
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