Miami vs. Florida game prediction by ESPN football computer

Miami hosts Florida in college football’s Week 4 action on Saturday in a notable SEC vs. ACC matchup. Let’s take a look at the latest prediction for the contest from a college football analytical model that simulates games and picks winners.

Saturday’s matchup finds two non-conference rivals going in very different directions.

Miami is undefeated through three games, playing cohesive football on both sides and boasts one of the nation’s most experienced and productive quarterbacks seemingly en route to College Football Playoff consideration.

Conversely, the Gators dropped to 1-2 after its second-straight loss and quarterback DJ Lagway threw 5 interceptions in a loss at LSU that seemed to once again shorten Billy Napier’s tenure as head coach just a few weeks into the season.

Looking ahead to this week’s matchup, let’s check out the latest college football predictions from the Football Power Index computer prediction model.

The model simulates every NCAA college football game 20,000 times and uses key analytics from both teams and picks winners based on a projected scoring margin per game.

Florida vs. Miami predictions

As might be expected, the analytical models are siding pretty strongly with the Hurricanes over the Gators after crunching the numbers in the matchup.

Miami is the big favorite over Florida, coming out ahead in the majority 75.2 percent of the computer’s simulations of the game.

That leaves the Gators as the presumptive winner in the remaining 24.8 percent of sims.

In total, the Hurricanes came out on top in 15,040 of the computer’s simulations of the contest, while Florida edged out Miami in the remaining 4,960 predictions.

How does that translate into an expected margin of victory in the game? Give the Hurricanes a touchdown when all is said and done.

Miami is projected to be just 7.3 points better than Florida on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

If so, that wouldn’t be enough for the Hurricanes to cover the spread against the Gators.

That’s because Miami is a 7.5 point favorite against Florida, according to the latest updated game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 51.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Miami at -280 and for Florida at +225 to win outright.

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Spread consensus predictions

A strong majority of bettors are siding with the Hurricanes to take care of business against the Gators and stay undefeated, according to the spread consensus picks for the game.

Miami is getting 71 percent of bets to win the game by at least 8 points and cover the point spread against Florida.

The other 29 percent of wagers project the Gators will either upset the Hurricanes outright or keep the game within a touchdown in a loss on the road.

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Miami vs. Florida future projections

Miami predictably outpaces every team in the ACC early in the season, ranking No. 1 in the conference, according to the computer’s 136-team college football rankings.

The model projects the Hurricanes will win 10.9 games this season.

Furthermore, it estimates Miami has a 51.5 percent chance to win the ACC championship, blowing out the competition in that regard with Georgia Tech placing second in that category at just 15.4 percent.

Florida plummeted in the computer’s projected SEC football rankings, placing 13th among 16 conference teams heading into this weekend.

The computer projects the Gators will win 4.2 games in 2025, with a meager 18.1 percent chance to even finish the year bowl eligible.

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College Football Power Index

Football Power Index (FPI) college football rankings and computer prediction model are a measure of team strength that predicts a team’s future performance. 

Rankings and scores predictions are based on 20,000 simulations of a team’s season and games, using a combination of key analytics, including scores to date, quality of opponents, team talent, recruiting, and a team’s schedule.

Teams are ranked not in order of talent like in other rankings, but by a projected point margin per game against an average team on a neutral field.

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How good is the prediction model?

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.

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