College football returns to action this weekend with a marquee SEC opener brought to us by conference realignment, as No. 15 Oklahoma plays host to No. 6 Tennessee on Saturday night.

Oklahoma is perfect through 3 games but still facing questions on an offensive line featuring new faces and going through some early struggles protecting young quarterback Jackson Arnold.

That line will face a challenge against Tennessee’s strong front seven, and the Vols’ boast a superb offensive attack led by Nico Iamaleava at quarterback that ranks 1st nationally in scoring production.

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

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

The models are siding pretty strongly with the road team this weekend.

Tennessee comes out as the projected winner in the majority 71 percent of the computer’s simulations, or 14,200 of the machine’s predictions.

That leaves Oklahoma coming out as the expected winner in the remaining 29 percent of sims.

Despite the bigger chance of victory, the computer still expects a close game.

The model projects that Tennessee will be 8.4 points better than Oklahoma on the same field.

That would be enough to cover the spread this week.

Tennessee is a 7 point favorite against Oklahoma, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 57.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for Tennessee at -275 and for OU at +225.

Tennessee ranks third among SEC teams with a 71.9 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff, and is expected to win 10.3 games this season, according to the index.

That model expects Oklahoma to win 7 games and make the playoff with 14.9 percent likelihood, sitting seventh in the SEC on that score.

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.

First-place votes in parentheses

1. Texas (35)
2. Georgia (23)
3. Ohio State (5)
4. Alabama
5. Ole Miss
6. Tennessee
7. Missouri
8. Miami
9. Oregon
10. Penn State
11. USC
12. Utah
13. Kansas State
14. Oklahoma State
15. Oklahoma
16. LSU
17. Notre Dame
18. Michigan
19. Louisville
20. Iowa State
21. Clemson
22. Nebraska
23. Northern Illinois
24. Illinois
25. Texas A&M

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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