Miami vs. Florida score prediction by expert football model

What the analytics predict for Miami vs. Florida in this Week 4 college football game from an expert model that projects scores.

Miami Hurricanes vs. Florida Gators game score prediction 2025 | Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

The latest prediction for Miami vs. Florida in this Week 4 college football game from an expert model that projects scores in this non-conference rivalry matchup.

Miami is perfect through three games and playing elite offense behind Heisman Trophy frontrunner Carson Beck, who as the two-year starting quarterback at Georgia knows a thing or two about defeating the Gators on the same field.

This week saw the Hurricanes emerge as the No. 4 team in college football and receive first-place votes in the AP top 25 poll for the first time in eight seasons coming off a huge 49-12 victory over then-ranked USF last weekend.

It was that USF team that surprised Florida in an upset the week before, the first of two straight losses that finds the SEC hopeful at just 1-2.

And hoping to avoid a 1-3 start for the first time in 39 seasons and further raise the temperature on Billy Napier’s so-far ill-fated stint as head coach.

Napier is just 20-21 at Florida with a meager 4-15 record against ranked opponents, a mark that collapses to 0-12 when those games are played on the road.

What do the analytics suggest for when the Gators and Hurricanes meet on the same field?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Miami and Florida compare in this Week 4 college football game.

Miami vs. Florida score prediction

As might be expected, the Hurricanes are the big favorite against the Gators when looking over the latest projections for the matchup.

SP+ predicts that Miami will defeat Florida outright in the game, and win by a projected score of 34 to 23, an expected margin of 10.6 points.

The model gives the Hurricanes a strong 75 percent chance of outright victory.

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 70-75 against the spread with a 48.3 win percentage.

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How to pick the game

The sports books are also naming the Hurricanes the favorite over the Gators.

Miami is an 8.5 point favorite against Florida, according to the latest updated game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 51.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Miami at -310 and for Florida at +245 to win outright.

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

• Miami -8.5
• Hurricanes to win -310
• Bet over 51.5 points

Doing so would put you in the company of a majority of bettors, most of whom expect the Hurricanes will hand the Gators another bad loss this weekend, according to the latest spread consensus picks for the game.

Miami is getting 70 percent of bets to beat the Gators by at least 9 points to cover the point spread and stay undefeated.

The other 30 percent of wagers project Florida will either defeat Miami outright in an upset, or will keep the final margin under 9 points in another loss.

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Computer prediction

Most other analytical football models also favor the Hurricanes will take care of the Gators in this rivalry game.

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

Miami is a big favorite over Florida according to the index, coming out ahead in the vast majority 75.2 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations of the game.

That leaves the Gators as the presumptive winner in the remaining 24.8 percent of sims.

How does that translate into an expected margin of victory for the game?

Despite coming out on top in so many of the simulations, this particular computer model still foresees a closer game than others expect.

After simulating the game 20,000 times, the computer predicts that Miami will be just 7.3 points better than Florida on the same field in both teams’ current composition.

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 73.1 percent of all games and hit 52.8 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.

More: ESPN computer predicts Miami vs. Florida game winner

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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