Nebraska vs. Cincinnati score prediction by expert football model

Nebraska and Cincinnati help kick off the 2025 college football season in his Big Ten vs. Big 12 matchup on Thursday. Let’s check in with the latest prediction for the game from an expert analytical football model that projects scores and picks winners.

Nebraska is hoping for better things after an up-and-down outing last season that resulted in a 7-6 overall record, but have head coach Matt Rhule still at the helm, known in college football as a turnaround artist who gets his best results starting in Year 3.

That’s when he turned Temple and Baylor into winners in previous tenures, and it’s his third year with the Cornhuskers heading into the 2025 season.

Dylan Raiola returns to the quarterback position, aided this year by notable additions at wide receiver and on the offensive line through the transfer portal, and working in an offense now under the management of coordinator Dana Holgorsen.

Cincinnati hopes to improve from its 5-7 campaign a year ago, and head coach Scott Satterfield finds himself in something of a hot seat entering his third year, but the Bearcats return Brendan Sorsby at quarterback.

Satterfield’s team lost four games by one score, depriving them of a place in the postseason, and he’s just 8-16 overall in his tenure at the school.

What do the analytical models suggest will happen when the Cornhuskers and Bearcats meet on the same field in the 2025 opener?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview for how Nebraska and Cincinnati compare in this Week 1 college football game.

Nebraska vs. Cincinnati score prediction

As expected, the models are siding with the Cornhuskers in this non-conference matchup, but by a more narrow margin than they would prefer.

SP+ predicts that Nebraska will defeat Cincinnati by a projected score of 28 to 20 and to win the game by an expected 8 points in the game.

The model gives the Cornhuskers a strong 69 percent chance of outright victory over the Bearcats.

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 was it last season? A year ago, the SP+ model went 409-389-9 overall against the spread with a 50.9 win percentage.

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How to pick Nebraska vs. Cincinnati

Nebraska is a 6.5 point favorite against Cincinnati, according to the updated game lines posted to the FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 51.5 points for the matchup.

And it set the moneyline odds for Nebraska at -230 and for Cincinnati at +188 to win outright.

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

• Nebraska -6.5
• Cornhuskers to win -230
• Bet under 51.5 points

If you do, you’ll be in the company of a slight majority of bettors who are taking the Cornhuskers over the Bearcats in the latest spread consensus picks for the game.

Nebraska is getting 64 percent of bets to win the game by at least a touchdown and cover the narrow point spread over its Big 12 counterpart.

The other 36 percent of wagers project the Bearcats will either defeat the Cornhuskers outright in an upset, or keep the margin under a touchdown in a loss.

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Computer prediction

Most other analytical football models are also siding with the Cornhuskers over the Bearcats in this non-conference matchup.

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.

Nebraska is the comfortable favorite over Cincinnati, coming out ahead in 66.2 percent of the computer’s most recent simulations of the game.

That leaves the Bearcats as the presumptive winner in the remaining 33.8 percent of sims.

In total, the Cornhuskers edged out Cincy in 13,240 simulations of the game, while the Bearcats topped Nebraska in the other 6,760 predictions.

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

Nebraska is projected to be just 5 points better than Cincinnati on the same field in both teams’ current form, according to the model’s latest forecast.

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How to watch Nebraska vs. Cincinnati

When: Thurs., Aug. 28
Where: Kansas City, Mo.

Time: 9 p.m. Eastern
TV: ESPN network

More: College football games today: Week 1 schedule for Thursday

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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