Tennessee vs. Kent State score prediction by expert college football model

What the analytics predict for Tennessee vs. Kent State in this Week 3 college football game.

Tennessee Volunteers vs. Kent State Golden Flashes Prediction / Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

Coming off a statement victory on the road against a ranked ACC opponent last weekend, No. 7 Tennessee is moving up the polls and making its case as an SEC title and playoff contender, returning home to square off against Kent State in college football's Week 3 action on Saturday.

Even though Vols quarterback Nico Iamaleava had some mistakes last week, including 2 intercepted passes, he passed for 2 touchdowns and ran for a third, while Dylan Sampson scored twice on 132 yards rushing and UT's defense held NC State to just 3 of 12 success on third down.

Big Orange returns to Rocky Top as a big favorite against the lowly Golden Flashes, but still needs to be on guard against looking ahead to next week's SEC opener on the road against Oklahoma.

Kent State checks in at 0-2 after dropping games to Pitt and St. Francis (Pa.), sitting at 105th nationally in scoring offense, 130th in rushing, 96th in passing, and 127th in scoring defense. Tennessee is 3rd in scoring, 11th in rushing, and 19th in passing output through 2 games.

What can we expect from this matchup? Let's turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview for how Tennessee and Kent State compare in this Week 3 college football game.

Tennessee vs. Kent State score prediction

As expected, the simulations expect the Volunteers to dominate at home against this MAC challenger.

SP+ predicts that Tennessee will defeat Kent State by a projected score of 52 to 1 and to win the game by an expected 51.6 points.

Since we can safely predict the Golden Flashes won't score 1 point exactly, let's round that down to project the Vols will win by a 52 to 0 count.

The model gives Big Orange a perfect 100 percent chance of 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

Tennessee is a 49.5 point favorite against Kent State, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 62.5 points for the game.

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

• Tennessee -49.5
• Bet under 62.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytical models also strongly favor the Volunteers to hold serve at home 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.

Tennessee comes out the projected winner in 99 percent of the computer's updated simulations, while Kent State squeaks out a win in the remaining 1 percent of sims.

The index also forecasts that Tennessee will by 51 points better than Kent State on the same field in both teams' current composition, enough to cover the spread.

Tennessee will win 9.8 games this season and sits fourth among SEC teams with a 65.5 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff, according to the FPI models.

Those models expect Kent State to win just 1.6 games on the year with an 0.3 percent shot at playing in a bowl game.

Tennessee vs. Kent State game time

When: Sat., Sept. 14
Time: 7:45 p.m. Eastern
TV: SEC Network

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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