Kansas State vs. Tulane Score Prediction by Expert Football Model

What the analytics predict for Kansas State vs. Tulane in this Week 2 college football game.

Kansas State Wildcats vs. Tulane Green Wave Prediction / Scott Sewell-Imagn Images

Kansas State looks to make a little statement in its non-conference slate while Tulane hopes to notch a marquee win over a Power Four team as the Green Wave host the Wildcats in college football's Week 2 action on Saturday.

Avery Johnson threw 2 touchdown passes while Kansas State's ground game accounted for 283 yards and a 9.1 yard per carry average in a 41-3 victory over UT Martin to start the season, as the Wildcats look ahead to competing for the expanded Big 12 conference title giong forward.

Tulane weathered the departure of head coach Willie Fritz in its first game of the year, pounding Southeastern Louisiana in a 52-0 result capped off by Rayshawn Pleasant's 100-yard pick-six and Darian Mensah's two touchdown passes.

A win in this Saturday's game would be an important College Football Playoff resume-booster for both teams, more so for Tulane, which is angling for the Group of Five's automatic playoff bid, while the Wildcats are on a short list of genuine Big 12 title hopefuls.

What can we make of the matchup? Let's turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Kansas State and Tulane compare heading into college football's Week 2 schedule.

Kansas State vs. Tulane prediction

The simulations favor the Wildcats to win the home game against this G5 challenger, but in a more narrow result than expected.

SP+ predicts that Kansas State will defeat Tulane by a projected score of 33 to 21 and to win the game by an expected 12.8 points.

The model gives the Wildcats a strong 79 percent chance of outright victory in the matchup.

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.”

Point spread

Kansas State is a 9.5 point favorite against Tulane, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 47.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for Kansas State at -345 and for Tulane at +270.

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

• Kansas State -9.5
• Wildcats to win -345
• Bet over 47.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytical models also favor the Wildcats to take down the Green Wave on Saturday.

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.

Kansas State is the projected winner of the matchup in a narrow 55.4 percent of the computer's simulations, while Tulane comes out the winner in the reamining 44.6 percent of sims.

The computer projects that Kansas State is just 4.4 points better than Tulane on the same field in both teams' current composition, not enough to cover the spread here.

Tulane is projected to win 9.2 games this season on the index, which names this team as the favorite to win the AAC championship at 45.7 percent.

Kansas State will win 8.3 games this season, according to the computer's calculations, and sits in third place among Big 12 teams with a 14.7 percent shot at the conference title.

Kansas State vs. Tulane game time, schedule

When: Sat., Sept. 7
Time: 11 a.m. Central
TV: ESPN network

Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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