Michigan vs. Nebraska game prediction by ESPN football computer

Expert prediction for Michigan vs. Nebraska in this Week 4 game by a college football analytical model that simulates games and picks winners.

Michigan Wolverines vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers game prediction 2025 | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images

Michigan hits the road against Nebraska in college football’s Week 4 action on Saturday in a crucial Big Ten opener for both teams. Let’s take a look at the latest prediction for the matchup from an expert analytical model that simulates games and picks winners.

Nebraska is perfect through three games, as Dylan Raiola commands an offense that ranks 12th in FBS by averaging 49 points per game, and is himself responsible for the 5th ranked passing attack, averaging a shade under 367 yards per game.

But the Cornhuskers are yet to be challenged in quite the way Michigan will be able to, even if the Wolverines are already facing a hole at 2-1 and with a loss at Oklahoma a couple weeks ago in which their offense failed to generate enough momentum.

Looking ahead to this week’s matchup, let’s check out 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 a projected scoring margin per game.

Michigan vs. Nebraska predictions

So far, the models are actually giving the Cornhuskers the benefit of the doubt playing at home against the Wolverines this weekend, but by a slim margin.

Nebraska emerged as the favorite to win the game outright in the slight majority 50.3 percent of the computer’s updated simulations of the matchup.

That leaves Michigan as the presumptive winner in the remaining 49.7 percent of sims after crunching all the numbers between these two teams.

In total, the Cornhuskers came out ahead in 10,060 of the computer’s simulations of the game, while the Wolverines edged out Nebraska in the other 9,940 predictions.

How does that translate into an expected margin of victory in the game? That’s where things get a little interesting.

Technically, the Cornhuskers came out as being exactly 0 points better than the Wolverines. Yes, that’s right. Zero points.

Such are the occasional anomalies of generating computer predictions for games, but it’s also a testament to just how closely matched Nebraska and Michigan appear to be.

Of course, no team wins games by zero points, and since someone must win the game and the computer predicted the Cornhuskers will win do it, we’ll round that number up to say they’ll win the game by 1 point.

If so, that would still constitute an upset in this Big Ten opener.

That’s because Michigan is the 2.5 point favorite against Nebraska, according to the most recent game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 45.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Michigan at -137 and for Nebraska as +114 to win outright.

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Spread consensus predictions

A slight majority of bettors expect the Wolverines to handle the Cornhuskers on the road, according to the latest spread consensus picks for the game.

Michigan is getting 54 percent of bets to win the game by at least a field goal and cover the spread against the Cornhuskers.

The other 46 percent of wagers project Nebraska will either upset the Wolverines at home or will lose the game by 1 or 2 points.

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Michigan vs. Nebraska future projections

Michigan places fifth among Big Ten teams when looking at the computer’s 136-team college football rankings and 10th nationally coming into this weekend.

The model forecasts the Wolverines will win 8.4 games this season.

And that they have a 6 percent chance to win the Big Ten championship and a 21.2 percent shot to qualify for the College Football Playoff.

The computer ranks the Cornhuskers as the No. 17 team in the country and projects they have a 3.8 percent shot to win the Big Ten title this season.

Nebraska will win 9.2 games this season, according to the computer’s latest projection.

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College Football Power Index

Football Power Index (FPI) college football rankings and computer prediction model are a measure of team strength that predicts a team’s future performance. 

Rankings and scores predictions are based on 20,000 simulations of a team’s season and games, using a combination of key analytics, including scores to date, quality of opponents, team talent, recruiting, and a team’s schedule.

Teams are ranked not in order of talent like in other rankings, but by a projected point margin per game against an average team on a neutral field.

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How good is the prediction model?

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.

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