Tulane vs. UTSA score prediction by football expert model

Win, and you're in. To the AAC Championship Game, that is. So there's plenty on the line this Friday as Tulane, which emerged as the No. 23 team in the College Football Playoff rankings this week, welcomes UTSA in a mega regular season finale.

• Just a loss to Ole Miss in September keeps the Green Wave from being undefeated, since then winning nine straight games
• Aside from a 24-8 win over FAU last week, Tulane won its previous five games by an average of just 4.8 points each time out
• Wave ranks 16th nationally by allowing 18.5 points per game on average
• By winning this game and the AAC title, Tulane is in position to make another New Year's Six bowl game
• Frank Harris had over 500 total yards and 6 all-purpose touchdowns for UTSA in a win over USF last week
• Roadrunners have won seven straight games since starting 1-3 and rank 29th nationally with 33.1 points per game scoring

What can we make of the matchup? Let's turn to the SP+ prediction model.

Tulane vs. UTSA prediction

The simulations favor the Green Wave to win at home, but in a close game.

SP+ predicts that Tulane will defeat UTSA by a projected score of 28 to 26 and win the game by a projected scoring margin of 1.8 points.

The model gives the Wave a 54 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 336-325-13 (50.8%) in its picks against the spread after going 38-26 (59.4%) last week, its best performance of the season to date.

Point spread

Tulane is a 3.5 point favorite against UTSA, according to the lines at SI Sportsbook, which set the total at 51.5 points for the game.

SI lists the moneyline odds for Tulane at -170 and for UTSA at +145.

If you're using this projection to bet on the game, you should take...

• UTSA +3.5
• Tulane to win -170
• Bet over 51.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytic models also favor Tulane to come out ahead.

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.

The index predicts that Tulane will win the game in 59.4 percent of simulations, while UTSA is projected to win out in the remaining 40.6 percent of sims.

By taking each team's projected scoring margin into account coming into the game, the computer expects Tulane to defeat UTSA by just 1 point, not enough to cover.