BYU Opens as 4.5 Point Favorite Over Houston

The opening line is up for BYU's upcoming game against Houston. BYU opened as a 4.5 point favorite over Houston on Friday. BYU is 4-0 for the first time since 2014 after beating UTSA 27-20 on Saturday.

ESPN FPI believes this game is essentially a tossup - BYU has a 52.3% chance to win. That number decreased from 65% after BYU struggled against UTSA and Houston put together an impressive performance in their opener against Tulane.

Here are the rest of FPI's predictions for BYU's 2020 schedule:

Opponent: BYU's chances to win according to ESPN FPI

@ Navy: W (Was 32.1%)

Troy: W (Was 83.6%)

Louisiana Tech: W (Was 92.9%)

UTSA: W (Was 97.6%)

@ Houston: 52.3% (Was 65.1%)

Texas State: 95.9% (Was 96.6%)

Western Kentucky: 94.0% (Was 94.5%)

Boise State: 56.1% (Was 63.8%)

North Alabama: 99.7% (Was 99.8%)

San Diego State: 86.1% (Was 89.5%)

After struggling against UTSA, ESPN FPI downgraded BYU's odds against Houston and Boise State. FPI believes that BYU will face its greatest challenge of the season on Friday at Houston. While these percentages favor BYU in most games, the Cougars will need continue to prove that they can consistently win games they are favored to win.

For those that aren't familiar with FPI, here's a definition from ESPN's website:

"FPI is a predictive rating system designed to measure team strength and project performance going forward. The ultimate goal of FPI is not to rank teams 1 through 128; rather, it is to correctly predict games and season outcomes. If Vegas ever published the power rankings it uses to set its lines, they would likely look quite a lot like FPI.

Correctly predicting game outcomes can’t be done by evaluating teams’ records because some teams are stronger than their records indicate (lots of close losses), and others have favorable schedules. Both of these situations are reflected in the game- and season-level projections.

Each team’s FPI rating is composed of a predicted offensive, defensive and special teams component. These ratings represent the number of points each unit is expected to contribute to the team's net scoring margin on a neutral field against an average FBS opponent.

In the preseason, these components are made up entirely of data from previous seasons, such as returning starters, past performance, recruiting rankings and coaching tenure (more on the preseason component below). That information allows FPI to make predictions (and make determinations on the strength of a team’s opponents) beginning in Week 1, and then it declines in weight as the season progresses. It is important to note that prior seasons’ information never completely disappears, because it has been proved to help with prediction accuracy even at the end of a season. Vegas similarly includes priors when setting its lines."

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