Tennessee vs. Oklahoma score prediction by expert college football model

The marquee matchup of the early SEC football schedule and the conference debut for No. 15 Oklahoma comes this weekend as the Sooners welcome No. 6 Tennessee in college football’s Week 4 action on Saturday.

Big Orange has demolished everything in its wake through 3 games, outscoring opponents 191 to 3, ranking 1st nationally with 63.7 points per game on average, 3rd in rushing output, and 3rd in FBS in scoring defense behind one of the nation’s premier front seven alignments.

And while the Vols will face a tougher task against the Sooners, the home side has played some close football the last two weeks against unranked opposition.

Oklahoma slogged through a surprising 16-12 victory against lowly Houston, scoring just 2 points in the second half of that game, and was leading Tulane by 5 in the fourth quarter before scoring 10 unanswered points, including quarterback Jackson Arnold’s 24-yard touchdown run.

OU needs to make a statement here to show the SEC that it belongs, especially when looking forward to what will become an increasingly difficult schedule as the season wears on.

What can we expect from the matchup this weekend?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Tennessee and Oklahoma compare in this Week 4 college football game.

The simulations are favoring the road team in this SEC opener, but in a close game.

SP+ predicts that Tennessee will defeat Oklahoma by a projected score of 30 to 23 and will win the game by an expected 7.1 points.

The model is giving the Volunteers a 67 percent chance of outright victory over the Sooners.

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 75-68 against the spread with a 52.4 win percentage.

Tennessee is a 7.5 point favorite against Oklahoma, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 56.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for Tennessee at -285 and for Oklahoma at +230 to win outright.

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

Other analytical models are projecting the Vols to win this SEC opener on the road.

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

Tennessee comes out as the projected winner in a majority 71.3 percent of the computer’s updated simulations.

That leaves Oklahoma as the expected winner in the remaining 28.7 percent of sims.

The index forecasts that Tennessee will be 8.4 points better than Oklahoma on the same field, enough for the Vols to cover this spread.

Tennessee is third among SEC teams with a 71.9 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff and will win 10.3 games this season, according to the FPI’s metrics.

That model expects the Sooners to win 7 games with a 14.5 percent shot at the 12-team playoff.

When: Sat., Sept. 21
Time: 6:30 p.m. Central
TV: ABC network

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