Alabama vs. Tennessee score prediction by expert football model

SEC rivals meet again in college football’s Week 8 action on Saturday, as No. 6 Alabama welcomes No. 11 Tennessee in The Third Saturday in October. Here is the latest prediction for the game from an expert model that projects scores.

Alabama improved to 3-0 in SEC play with three-straight wins over ranked conference opponents and heads into a fourth on a roll playing some of the best passing offense in the country behind budding star quarterback Ty Simpson.

Simpson commands one of college football’s five-best aerial attacks with over 1,600 yards passing and just 1 interception with 13 touchdowns and now lines up against one of the SEC’s worst-performing defenses this season.

While the Vols lead the conference with more than 48 points per game, their defense is the league’s worst, surrendering more than 29 points to opponents on average.

Alabama checks in ranking 6th in the SEC with nearly five touchdowns per game, and is seventh among the 16 teams by allowing more than 17 points on average.

What do the analytics suggest for when the Volunteers visit the Crimson Tide this weekend?

For that, let’s turn to some of the more successful prediction models to get a preview of how Tennessee and Alabama compare in this Week 8 college football game.

Who is favored?

The betting market is calling the Tide a nearly double-digit favorite over the Vols.

Alabama is an 8.5 point favorite against Tennessee, according to the updated game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 58.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Alabama at -315 and for Tennessee at +250 to win outright.

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The implied score

The game’s implied score based on the current betting lines suggests a comfortable victory for the Crimson Tide over the Volunteers.

When taking the point spread and total into consideration, it’s implied that Alabama will defeat Tennessee by a projected score of 34 to 24.

SP+ score prediction

As might be expected, the SP+ prediction model is siding more with the Tide over the Vols, but the home team will have to sweat it out first.

SP+ predicts that Alabama will defeat Tennessee by a projected score of 29 to 27 and will win the game by an expected margin of 2.2 points in the process.

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 175-177 against the spread with a 49.7 win percentage. Last week, it was 31-25 (55.4%) in its picks against the spread.

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Computer prediction

What kind of margin does the index see in the matchup?

Alabama is a strong favorite over Tennessee outright, coming out ahead in the majority 72.7 percent of the computer’s simulations of the game.

That leaves the Volunteers as the presumptive winner in the remaining 27.3 percent of sims.

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

Alabama is projected to be 6.1 points better than Tennessee on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s 20,000 simulations.

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How to pick the game

Two expert passing offenses and two defenses that will let a few go by, but one of them is definitely struggling more than the other.

Tennessee is a shadow of last season’s defense, ranking 91st in the country in total defensive stop rate at just 57.8 percent, allowing 2.48 points per drive to opponents.

Alabama is among college football’s best in the department, placing 17th in FBS with a defensive stop rate of 73.2 percent, allowing 1.73 points per drive.

Having that advantage in the air plus playing at home should allow the Crimson Tide to turn the Third Saturday in October back in its favor.

But in a closely-fought contest, given the struggles Alabama has had running the ball, compared to Tennessee with its more than 202 rushing yards per game, a stabilizing force that will keep Simpson and the Tide offense off the field a little more than it likes.

• Tennessee +8.5
• Alabama to win -315
• Bet under 58.5 points

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