Texas vs. Vanderbilt prediction: What the analytics say

One of college football’s three ranked-on-ranked matchups kicks off from Austin as No. 20 Texas welcomes surging No. 9 Vanderbilt in a battle of SEC hopefuls vying for attention near the top of the conference standings.

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

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

Despite the Commodores’ recent run, the models project the Longhorns will prevail at home, but in what could be a close game.

Texas emerged as the big favorite in the matchup, coming out ahead in 70.4 percent of the computer’s simulations of the game.

That leaves Vanderbilt as the presumptive winner in the remaining 29.6 percent of sims.

In total, the Longhorns came out on top in 14,080 simulations of the game, while the Commodores edged out Texas in the other 5,920 predictions.

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

Texas is projected to be 5.5 points better than Vanderbilt on the same field in both teams’ current composition, according to the model’s latest forecast.

Texas is a narrow 2.5 point favorite against Vanderbilt, according to the latest game lines posted to FanDuel Sportsbook.

FanDuel lists the total at 45.5 points for the matchup, and set the moneyline odds for Texas at -134 and for Vanderbilt at +114 to win outright.

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.

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 79.2 percent of all games and hit 44.4 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.