Missouri vs. Boston College score prediction by expert football model

One of two games featuring ranked teams on the same field this week finds No. 6 Missouri playing host to newly-ranked No. 24 Boston College in this weekend’s Week 3 NCAA football action.

The last time we saw this SEC vs. ACC matchup was three years ago in Chestnut Hill, Mass., as the Eagles beat Mizzou by a touchdown in overtime.

But that was when Missouri was still looking for its identity under head coach Eli Drinkwitz, a process that has taken leaps and bounds after winning 11 games and the Cotton Bowl last season.

While the Tigers have yet to allow a point in two games this season, the Eagles will present a decidedly more difficult challenge: BC ranks 10th in scoring defense, 26th in scoring offense, and is 9th nationally by rushing for 285 yards per game on average.

Boston College quarterback Thomas Castellanos hasn’t put the ball in the air often, just 26 times so far, but the dual threat player is hitting 73 percent of his throws with 6 touchdowns and no interceptions.

What do the analytics project for the matchup? Let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Boston College and Missouri compare in this Week 3 college football game.

The simulations currently favor the home team, and by an apparently generous margin.

SP+ predicts that Missouri will defeat Boston College by a projected score of 39 to 16 and to win the game by an expected 22.4 points.

The model gives Mizzou a strong 92 percent chance to win the game outright.

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+ model is 47-44 against the spread with a 51.6 win percentage.

Missouri is a 16.5 point favorite against Boston College, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 53.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for Missouri at -720 to win outright and for Boston College at +490.

If you’re using this projection to bet on the game, you should take…

Other analytical models also favor the Tigers to win out at home.

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.

Missouri comes out the expected winner in 76.6 percent of the computer’s simulations, while Boston College wins the game in the remaining 23.4 percent of sims.

But the index forecasts a slightly closer game, as Missouri is projected to be 11.3 points better than Boston College on the same field, not enough to cover this spread.

Missouri is projected to win 9 games this season and is sixth among SEC teams with a 39.8 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff.

Boston College will win 8.3 games this year, by the model’s calculations, with a 17.5 percent shot at the 12-team playoff, sitting fourth among ACC teams this week.

When: Sat., Sept. 14
Time: 12:45 p.m. Eastern
TV: SEC Network

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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