Alabama vs. Missouri score prediction by expert football model

Alabama and Missouri face off in a major SEC clash in college football’s Week 7 action on Saturday. Here is the latest prediction for the game from an expert model.

Alabama moved to 2-0 in SEC competition following marquee victories against Georgia and Vanderbilt, both ranked at the time, and seriously helped boost the Crimson Tide’s national reputation after the season-opening loss at Florida State.

Now, Kalen DeBoer’s team gets a third-straight test to prove themselves against an insurgent SEC title hopeful that has played perfect football through five games.

Missouri is 1-0 in SEC play with a victory over South Carolina and ranks seventh in the country in scoring, posting more than 45 points per game on average behind the dynamic duo of quarterback Beau Pribula and running back Ahmad Hardy.

What do the analytics suggest will happen as the Crimson Tide pay a visit to the Tigers?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Alabama and Missouri compare in this Week 7 college football game.

Alabama vs. Missouri score prediction

Bad news, Bama fans: the model is forecasting a big upset this weekend.

SP+ predicts that Missouri will defeat Alabama outright by a projected score of 28 to 26 and will win the game by an expected margin of 1.6 points in the process.

The model suggests the Tigers will win the game with 54 percent probability and hand Alabama its second loss of the season.

SP+ is a “tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that attempts to predict game outcomes by measuring “the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football.”

How good is it this season? So far, the SP+ college football prediction model is 144-152 against the spread with a 48.6 win percentage. Last week, it was 25-25 (50%) in its picks against the spread.

How to pick the game

The bookmakers are still riding with the Crimson Tide as a narrow favorite in the game.

Alabama is a 3.5 point favorite against Missouri, according to the latest game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook entering the weekend.

FanDuel lists the total at 52.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Alabama at -148 and for Missouri at +126 to win outright.

If you’re using this prediction to bet on the game, you should take...

Missouri +3.5
Tigers to win +126
Bet over 52.5 points

Computer prediction

Other football analytical models are still siding with the Tide over the Tigers, but are also expecting a very close game in Columbia.

That includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times and pick winners.

Alabama is projected to win the game outright in the majority 63.4 percent of the computer’s simulation of the matchup.

That leaves Missouri as the presumptive winner in the remaining 36.6 percent of sims.

How does that translate into an expected margin of victory?

Alabama is projected to be 3.4 points better than Missouri on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

How accurate was the College Football Power Index computer prediction model last Saturday?

Projecting the games a week ago, the Power Index models correctly predicted 74 percent of all games and hit 38 percent against the spread.

Predicting a total of 799 college football games a year ago, the Power Index computers were correct for 70.964 percent of their final picks, ranking eighth nationally out of 55 other football models.

Over the last decade, the Football Power Index has proven correct on 75 percent of FBS college football game predictions, including in 73 percent of matchups when it favored a team with at least 70 percent likelihood to win.

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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