Oregon vs. Penn State score prediction by expert football model

What the analytics predict for Oregon vs. Penn State in this Week 5 college football game by an expert model that projects scores.

Penn State vs. Oregon score prediction 2025 | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

No. 6 Oregon hits the road against No. 3 Penn State in a battle of top 10 ranked Big Ten rivals as college football’s Week 5 action kicks off Saturday night. Here is the latest prediction for the game from an expert football model that projects scores.

Penn State is just 4-20 against AP top 10 ranked opponents in James Franklin’s tenure as head coach, a number that drops to 2-20 when going against top-six ranked opposition, but this team returns the core of an experienced and talented offense.

They’ll have to be in top form against an Oregon squad that has obliterated everything in its wake so far this season, defeating opponents by an average of 52 to 9, and boasting a speedy group of skill weapons led by five-star quarterback Dante Moore.

What do the analytics suggest will happen as the Ducks visit the Nittany Lions in this Big Ten clash under the lights?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Oregon and Penn State compare in this Week 5 college football game.

Oregon vs. Penn State score prediction

The models are going with the visitors in this Big Ten matchup, but by the slimmest of possible margins, and that’s where things get a little interesting.

SP+ predicts that Oregon and Penn State will effectively play to a 27-27 tie in their game, illustrating just how closely matched the model pictures both these teams on the same field.

But of course, teams can’t finish with a tie these days, but the projection 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 close in quality these teams are.

For its part, the SP+ model did pick a winner of sorts, as it gives Oregon a narrow 51 percent chance to defeat Penn State outright in the game.

As part of that prediction, it also forecasts that the Ducks will finish the game just 0.4 points better than the Nittany Lions, so we can more finely tune the projection to mean that Oregon will win the game by an expected score of 28 to 27.

This was the second-closest game predicted by the SP+ system this week, with only the matchup between South Carolina and Kentucky being closer, with the Gamecocks getting an 0.2 point edge over the Wildcats. It’s rare, but it happens.

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 94-101 against the spread with a 48.2 win percentage.

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How to pick the game

The oddsmakers are giving the Nittany Lions a slight advantage at home in the Whiteout Game atmosphere against the visiting Ducks.

Penn State is a 3.5 point favorite against Oregon, according to the updated game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook entering this weekend.

FanDuel lists the total at 53.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Penn State at -178 and for Oregon at +146 to win outright.

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

• Oregon +3.5
• Penn State to win -178
• Bet over 53.5 points

That’s what a majority of bettors will be doing when looking over the latest spread consensus picks for the matchup.

Oregon is getting 68 percent of bets to either defeat Penn State outright in an upset, or to keep the final margin to a field goal or less in a loss.

The other 32 percent of wagers project the Nittany Lions will beat the Ducks by at least 4 points and cover the spread to stay undefeated.

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Computer predictions

Most other football analytical models are still giving the Nittany Lions a slight edge over the Ducks at home.

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.

Penn State is a very narrow favorite against the Ducks, coming out ahead in 51.1 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations of the game.

That leaves Oregon as the presumptive winner in the remaining 48.9 percent of sims.

How does that translate into an expected margin of victory in the game? As the close prediction indicates, the models foresee a very narrow triumph for the Nittany Lions.

Penn State is projected to be just 0.2 points better than Oregon on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s 20,000 simulations.

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 72.3 percent of all games and hit 52.3 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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How to watch Oregon vs. Penn State

When: Sat., Sept. 27
Where: Penn State

Time: 7:30 p.m. Eastern
TV: NBC network

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