Duke vs. Louisville score prediction by college football analytic model

What the analytics predict for Duke vs. Louisville in this Week 9 college football game

Two ACC rivals meet on the gridiron this weekend, one looking to stay in conference championship contention, and the other hoping to avoid a costly second league loss as No. 20 Duke hits the road against No. 18 Louisville on Saturday.

• Cardinals are 6-1 overall with a 3-1 mark in ACC play and holding onto the No. 2 position in the league behind Florida State
• Duke led the Seminoles on the road much of last week before quarterback Riley Leonard re-aggravated his ankle injury
• Blue Devils lost that lead in the second half, falling to 5-2 (2-1 ACC), sitting at 4th in the conference standings
• What can we expect in this game? For that, let's turn to the SP+ predictive model

Duke vs. Louisville prediction

Duke vs. Louisville prediction / Duke Football

Score prediction

The simulations favor Louisville to hold on at home against Duke in a close game.

SP+ projects the Cardinals will take down Duke by a projected score of 26 to 24, with a forecasted 1.6 point margin of victory for the home side.

The model estimates Louisville has a 54 percent chance of victory outright, while Duke has the 46 percent shot at the upset.

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 accurate is the model? So far, SP+ is 212-207-11 (50.6%) straight-up and 200-222-8 (47.4%) against the spread this season.

Point spread

Louisville is a 4.5 point favorite against Duke, according to the lines at SI Sportsbook, which set the total at 46.5 points for the game.

SI lists the moneyline at Louisville -118 and Duke +145.

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

• Duke +4.5
• Louisville on the ML at -118
• Bet over 46.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytic models also project Louisville to win the game.

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

The index projects Louisville to win the game in 53.5 percent of its simulations, or 10,700 of the projections. Duke wins out in the remaining 46.5 percent of sims, or the other 9,300 of predictions.

By taking the difference between each team's projected margin of victory against opponents, the computer predicts Louisville will win by 2.2 points in the game.

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Duke at Louisville schedule

When: Sat., Oct. 28
Time: 3:30 p.m. Eastern
TV: ESPN network
Stream live: fuboTV (Try for free)

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