Nebraska vs. Colorado Predicted By a College Football Computer Model

(CTN News) – Deion Sanders and his new-look Buffaloes return to Boulder for the home opener of the Prime era one week after Colorado made its first big statement of the early season.

After beating TCU in the playoffs last week, Nebraska is now set to play college football’s Week 2 match against long-time rival Nebraska on Saturday as they look to make their statement again.

As I mentioned earlier, the Buffs had quite an impressive debut out in Fort Worth, thanks to an historic day for Shedeur Sanders and his Colorado all-time record day, a day that saw him go over 500 yards passing, while freshman back Dylan Edwards scored four times in a 45-42 win over the national title runner-up team on the road as three-TD underdogs.

With the hire of Matt Rhule as the head coach of Nebraska, the Cornhuskers are entering a new era of their own, and it is hoped that his reputation as a turnaround artist at the college level, where he helped rebuild Temple and then Baylor, will do the same for the Huskers.

After a great start to the season, Nebraska lost another close lead late in Week 1 against Minnesota to begin the season 0-1 in conference play.

Many analysts were not expecting Nebraska to start 0-2 or Colorado to start 2-0 this year, but that’s exactly what could happen if the oddsmakers are right.

Is there anything we can expect when things get started? This week we will take a look at how the SP+ prediction model devised by ESPN analyst Bill Connelly projects the matchup, as well as the latest betting information for the Week 2 matchup.

Predictions for the Colorado vs Nebraska game

Using the SP+ model this week, we anticipate that Nebraska will defeat Colorado by an estimated score of 30 to 22 against the Colorado Huskers, with Nebraska having a win probability of 68 percent, and with an expected margin of 8.2 points. This is in contrast to most of the bookmakers this week.

There is some disagreement regarding the point spread, as the line at SI Sportsbook places Colorado as the close 2.5 point favorite against Nebraska.

A computer model based on the College Football Power Index computer model predicts Nebraska will win the game with 58.6 percent probability, while Colorado will win with 41.4 percent, according to the College Football Power Index, which simulates games 20,000 times to pick winners.

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