Michigan vs. Nebraska score prediction by expert football model

The latest prediction for Michigan vs. Nebraska in this Week 4 college football game from an expert model that projects scores heading into this critical Big Ten matchup.

Michigan is already down a game at 2-1 overall with an 0-1 mark against AP ranked teams after a loss on the road against SEC contender Oklahoma a couple weeks ago, and this game will serve as another litmus test for this offense to get going.

They won’t have head coach Sherrone Moore on the sideline, as he serves the second of a two-game suspension the school imposed on him as a condition of the sign-stealing affair before he returns to the team the following weekend.

So far, his absence hasn’t exactly hurt the team, which clobbered Central Michigan in a 60-point drubbing last Saturday, the first time it hit that mark against a single opponent since the 1922 season, but this week’s competition will be significantly harder.

Nebraska is perfect through three games behind a passing attack that ranks 5th nationally as quarterback Dylan Raiola has found his groove in Dana Holgorsen’s offense by averaging nearly 367 yards per game on average this season.

That’s in addition to the Cornhuskers ranking 7th nationally in scoring defense by allowing just 8.7 points, while on the other side they place 11th among 136 FBS teams by posting exactly 49 points per game on offense.

What do the analytics suggest will happen as the Cornhuskers welcome the Wolverines in this notable Big Ten clash?

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

Michigan vs. Nebraska score prediction

Lincoln could be Upset City in college football by the time this one is over, as the model is expecting the Cornhuskers to upend the Wolverines this weekend.

But it will be close. Very close.

SP+ predicts that Nebraska will defeat Michigan outright on its home field, and to win the game by a projected score of 23 to 22, an expected margin of just 1.1 points.

The model projects the Cornhuskers have a narrow 53 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.

How to pick the game

The sports books are keeping with the Wolverines as the favorite over the Cornhuskers, but also by a very narrow margin on Saturday.

Michigan is a 2.5 point favorite against Nebraska, according to the updated game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 47.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Michigan at -126 and for Nebraska at +105 to win outright.

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

Nebraska +2.5
Cornhuskers to win +105
Bet under 47.5 points

By doing so, you would be in the minority of bettors, most of whom are expecting the Wolverines to avoid that second loss on the road against the Cornhuskers.

Michigan is getting 53 percent of bets to win the game by at least a field goal and cover the narrow point spread.

The other 47 percent of wagers project Nebraska will either upset the Wolverines outright or at least keep the final margin under 3 points in a defeat.

Computer prediction

Most other football analytical models are also going with the upset in this Big Ten clash.

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.

Nebraska is a narrow favorite over Michigan according to the index, coming out ahead in the slight majority 50.3 percent of the computer’s updated simulations of the game.

That leaves the Wolverines as the presumptive winner in the remaining 49.7 percent of sims.

And as expected, that evenness was translated into an expected margin of victory as the computers calculated how much they thought Nebraska would win the game by.

After simulating the game 20,000 times, the computer model revealed that it expects the Cornhuskers will defeat Michigan by 0 points.

That’s right. Zero points. A big, fat goose egg. Which, of course, isn’t possible, but it does reveal the rare abnormalities you sometimes get when you ask a computer to predict a football game, and also a statement on just how evenly matched these teams might be.

Granted, no team can win a game by zero points, and since some team must win, and given the model says it’ll be Nebraska that does, we can round that up to a 1 point victory.

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 Nebraska vs. Michigan game winner

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Michigan vs. Nebraska score prediction

How to pick the game

Computer prediction

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