Clemson vs. North Carolina score prediction by expert football model

Clemson returns to action against North Carolina in college football’s Week 6 action on Saturday featuring a head coaching matchup of some historical consequence.

Saturday marks the first time since 1993 that a college football game will be coached by someone with multiple FBS national titles and someone else with multiple Super Bowls.

Dabo Swinney fits the bill on the first count for Clemson, and Bill Belichick the second for North Carolina, marking the second such occasion since Bill Walsh defeated Joe Paterno 32 years ago.

Neither coach is where they thought they would be, however. Clemson is just 1-3 despite entering the season as the consensus favorite to win the ACC, and North Carolina is 2-2 with no wins against FBS competition as of yet.

What do the analytics suggest will happen as the Tigers pay a visit to the Tar Heels?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model and some other analytical metrics to see exactly how Clemson and North Carolina compare in this Week 6 college football game.

Clemson vs. North Carolina score prediction

This week, the models are siding with Dabo Swinney over Bill Belichick, but expect this will be a pretty close game given the Tigers’ recent offensive struggles.

SP+ predicts that Clemson will defeat North Carolina outright by a projected score of 29 to 22 and will win the game by an expected margin of 7.7 points.

The model gives the one-time ACC faves a strong 69 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 119-127 against the spread with a 48.4 win percentage.

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How to pick the game

Dabo’s team is still a big favorite on the books.

Clemson is a 14.5 point favorite against North Carolina, according to the updated game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook entering this weekend.

FanDuel lists the total at 46.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Clemson at -720 and for North Carolina at +520 to win outright.

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

• North Carolina +14.5
• Clemson to win -720
• Bet over 46.5 points

Doing so would put you in the company of most bettors when looking over the latest spread consensus picks for the game.

North Carolina is getting 53 percent of bets to either defeat Clemson outright in an upset or to keep the final margin to two touchdowns or fewer in a loss.

The other 47 percent of wagers project the Tigers will win the game by more than 14 points and inch closer to .500 with a win over Belichick’s team.

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Computer prediction

Most other football analytical models are also siding with the Tigers over the Tar Heels.

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.

Clemson is a big favorite over the Tar Heels, coming out ahead in 77.5 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations of the game.

That leaves North Carolina as the presumptive winner in the remaining 22.5 percent of sims.

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

Clemson is projected to be 12.1 points better than North Carolina on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s 20,000 simulations.

• Clemson: 77.5% chance to win
• North Carolina: 22.5% chance to win
• Prediction: Clemson by 12
• ATS pick: North Carolina +14.5

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 73.9 percent of all games and hit 50 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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Clemson vs. North Carolina implied score

The game’s implied score suggests a good enough win for the Tigers on the road against Belichick and the Tar Heels for their second win of the season.

When taking the point spread and total into consideration, it’s implied that Clemson will defeat North Carolina by a projected score of 29 to 18.

• North Carolina +14.5
• Bet over 46.5 points

The updated betting line correctly predicted the outright winner 76.8 percent of the time but covered the spread in only 45.9 percent of games, according to The Prediction Tracker.

This suggests that while the line was generally effective at picking winners, it underperformed when measured against the point spread.

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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