Texas vs. UTSA score prediction by expert college football model

What the analytics predict for Texas vs. UTSA in this Week 3 college football game.

Texas Longhorns vs. UTSA Roadrunners Prediction / Mikala Compton/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK

Coming off the win of the year so far, No. 2 Texas jumped a spot in the rankings and returns home to square off against UTSA in college football's Week 3 action on Saturday.

The Longhorns can ill afford to look past the Roadrunners, or next week's opponent in UL Monroe, before embarking on the program's SEC debut two weeks from now, coming off a high from dominating defending national champion Michigan on the road last Saturday.

The departure of veteran star quarterback Frank Harris from the program has cost UTSA dearly in offensive production, going off of last week's 49-10 loss to Texas State, which amassed over 500 yards in that win, while the Roadrunners were held to 147 yards passing and 82 yards rushing.

Still, this has been a successful football team in the last few years, winning at least nine games in each of the last three seasons and claiming two Conference USA championships under head coach Jeff Traylor.

What do the analytics suggest for the matchup? Let's turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview of how Texas and UTSA compare heading into this Week 3 college football game.

Texas vs. UTSA score prediction

As expected, the simulations strongly favor the Longhorns in this battle against the Roadrunners.

SP+ predicts that Texas will defeat UTSA by a projected score of 48 to 10 and to win the game outright by an expected 38 points.

The model gives the Longhorns a near-consensus 99 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

Texas is a 35.5 point favorite against UTSA, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 56.5 points for the game.

The moneyline odds for Texas are listed at -20000 to win and for UTSA at +4000.

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

• Texas -35.5
• Longhorns to win -20000
• Bet over 56.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytical models also strongly favor the Longhorns to dominate at home.

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.

Texas comes out as the projected winner in 98.8 percent of the computer's updated simulations, while UTSA wins the game in the remaining 1.2 percent of sims.

Texas is 39.8 points better than UTSA on the same field, according to the index, more than enough to cover the spread.

The models project that Texas will win 11.2 games this season and it currently leads all SEC teams with a 90.8 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff.

UTSA's chances plummeted after last week's result against Texas State, with the index projecting the team will win just 5.8 games and is ninth among AAC teams with a 0.2 percent shot at the playoff.

Texas vs. UTSA game time

When: Sat., Sept. 14
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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