Miami vs. Florida State score prediction by expert football model

Miami and Florida State square off in one of college football’s more consequential rivalry games on Saturday. Here is the latest prediction for the matchup from an expert model that projects scores.

Miami remains undefeated coming into this matchup and the favorite to win the ACC championship on the back of Carson Beck’s efficient play, and with resume-building wins over Notre Dame and Florida so far this season.

Florida State started out with that big win over Alabama in the season opener and emerged as one of college football’s surprise contenders, but slipped last week in an upset loss against then-unranked Virginia coming into this critical test.

What do the analytics suggest will happen as the Seminoles welcome the Hurricanes?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Florida State and Miami compare in this Week 6 college football game.

Miami vs. Florida State score prediction

So far, the models are expecting the Seminoles to drop a second-straight game, but give them a fighting chance in the process.

SP+ predicts that Miami will defeat Florida State outright by a projected score of 30 to 27 and will win the game by an expected margin of 2.1 points.

The model gives the Hurricanes a narrow 55 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

The road team is still the favorite in this rivalry game, according to the oddsmakers.

Miami is a 4.5 points favorite against Florida State, 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 Miami at -178 and for Florida State at +152 to win outright.

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

• Florida State +4.5
• Miami to win -178
• Bet over 53.5 points

If you do, you’ll be in the company of a minority of bettors, most of whom are expecting the Hurricanes to not make this particularly interesting, according to the latest spread consensus picks for the game.

Miami is getting 61 percent of bets to win the game by at least 5 points and cover the spread in its ACC opener this week.

The other 39 percent of wagers project Florida State will either defeat the Hurricanes outright in an upset or will keep the game within 5 points in a loss.

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Computer prediction

Most other analytical football models also favor the Hurricanes over the Seminoles.

That includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times and pick winners.

Miami is a big favorite on the index, coming out ahead in 65.3 percent of the computer’s updated simulations of the game.

That leaves Florida State as the presumptive winner in the remaining 34.7 percent of sims.

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

Miami is projected to be 4 points better than Florida State on the same field in both teams’ current composition, 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 80.3 percent of all games and hit 38.7 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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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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