Kansas vs. UNLV score prediction by expert college football model

What the analytics predict for Kansas vs. UNLV in this Week 3 college football game.

Kansas Jayhawks vs. UNLV Rebels Prediction / Jay Biggerstaff-Imagn Images

College football's Week 3 schedule gets underway on Friday night as Kansas looks to rebound coming off a loss to an unranked opponent last week and returns home against UNLV.

Kansas fell to 1-1 on the year after last week's loss at Illinois in which quarterback Jalon Daniels passed for just 141 yards and the offense was responsible for four turnovers.

UNLV comes in perfect through two games and after scoring 72 points in a rout of Utah Tech last weekend, moving to 2-0 for the first time since 1999, an important step as the Rebels look to carve out whatever room there might be for the Group of Five's playoff position.

Today's game marks the first time Kansas and UNLV have met on the same field since the 2023 Guaranteed Rate Bowl, a 49-36 victory for the Jayhawks, who lead the series all-time, 2-1.

What do the analytics forecast for the matchup? Let's turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Kansas and UNLV compare in this Week 3 college football game.

Kansas vs. UNLV score prediction

The simulations currently favor the Jayhawks to prevail at home against the Rebels.

SP+ predicts that Kansas will defeat UNLV by a projected score of 36 to 27 and to win the game by an expected 9.1 points.

The model gives the Jayhawks a strong 72 percent chance of outright victory in the game.

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 47-44 against the spread with a 51.6 win percentage.

Point spread

Kansas is a 9.5 point favorite against UNLV, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 57.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for Kansas at -335 to win outright and for UNLV at +265.

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

• UNLV +9.5
• Kansas to win -335
• Bet over 57.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytical models also suggest the Jayhawks will win the game today.

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 comes out as the projected winner in 73.7 percent of the computer's updated simulations, while UNLV is expected to win in the remaining 26.3 percent of sims.

The index forecasts that Kansas will be 6.5 points better than UNLV on the same field in both teams' current composition, also not enough to cover the spread.

Kansas will win 7.1 games this season and sits seventh among Big 12 teams with a 7.4 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff, according to the models.

The computer expects UNLV to win 8.3 games this season and the team is second in the Mountain West with a 9 percent shot at the 12-team playoff.

Kansas vs. UNLV game time, schedule

When: Fri., Sept. 13
Time: 6 p.m. Central
TV: ESPN network

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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