Texas vs. Oklahoma score prediction by expert football model

Texas and Oklahoma reunite their rivalry as the Red River Shootout kicks off college football’s Week 7 action on Saturday. Here is the updated prediction for the game from expert models that project scores.

Texas dipped out of the rankings and fell to 3-2 on the season after a surprise upset loss on the road against unranked Florida in the SEC opener, and there remain serious questions around the potential of quarterback Arch Manning, who has not lived anywhere near up to the impossible hype around him this preseason.

There’s also a question at quarterback for Oklahoma, although not around his talent, but starter John Mateer is dealing with the remnants of a hand injury and subsequent operation, although there is some hope he might be available for Saturday’s game.

What do the analytics suggest will happen as the Sooners and Longhorns face off?

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

Texas vs. Oklahoma score prediction

Coming off the events of last week and the early action broadly, the models are siding with the Sooners over the Longhorns, but by a close margin.

SP+ predicts that Oklahoma will defeat Texas by a projected score of 26 to 18 and will win the game by an expected margin of 7.6 points.

The model gives the Sooners a solid 68 percent chance of victory over the Longhorns.

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 siding with the Longhorns by a narrow margin over the Sooners.

Texas is a 1.5 point favorite against Oklahoma, according to the latest game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook entering the weekend.

FanDuel lists the total at 43.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Texas at -114 and for Oklahoma at -105 to win outright.

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

Oklahoma +1.5
Sooners to win -105
Bet over 43.5 points

Computer prediction

Other football analytical models take a different view, likely out of some concern around the Sooners’ quarterback situation going against the Longhorns’ defense.

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.

Texas is the narrow favorite according to that model, coming out ahead in 60.9 percent of the computer’s simulations of the game.

That leaves Oklahoma as the presumptive winner in the remaining 39.1 percent of sims.

How does that translate to an expected margin of victory in the game?

Texas is projected to be 2.7 points better than Oklahoma on the same field in both teams’ current form, 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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