Michigan vs. Iowa score prediction for Big Ten Championship Game by expert model

What the analytics predict for Michigan vs. Iowa in the Big Ten Championship Game

A shot at the national championship is on the line in Indy this weekend as Championship Saturday finds two-time defending Big Ten champ and No. 2 ranked Michigan back in contention with a date against Iowa for a shot not only at the conference title for a third-straight year, but for another berth in the College Football Playoff in the last-ever four-team national semifinal.

Having got past rival Ohio State in Rivalry Week, the Wolverines now turn their balanced, highly-ranked roster at the Hawkeyes, a team that plays some of college football's best defense, but also some of its most anemic offense. What can we make of the matchup? For that, let's turn to the SP+ prediction model.

Michigan vs. Iowa prediction

The simulations predictably favor the Wolverines to get past the Hawkeyes easily.

SP+ predicts that Michigan will defeat Iowa by a projected score of 29 to 6, and to win the game by an expected 22.7 points to win the Big Ten championship.

The model gives the Wolverines a strong 90 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 374-351-14 (51.6%) in its picks against the spread after going 38-26-1 (59.2%) last week, its second-best performance of the season to date.

Point spread

Michigan is a 21.5 point favorite against Iowa, according to the lines at SI Sportsbook, which set the total for 34.5 points in the game.

SI lists the moneyline odds for Michigan at -2500 and for Iowa at +1300.

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

• Michigan -21.5
• Wolverines to win -2500
• Bet over 34.5 points

Expert prediction

Other analytic tools also expect the Wolverines to win the game.

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 projects that Michigan will win the game in 92.6 percent of its simulations, while Iowa comes out ahead in the remaining 7.4 percent of sims.

The computer predicts that Michigan will defeat Iowa by an expected 20.5 points, not enough to cover the line on the SI book.

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