USC vs. Michigan score prediction by expert college football model

What the analytics predict for USC vs. Michigan in this Week 4 college football game.

USC Trojans vs. Michigan Wolverines Prediction / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Usually, we had to wait for a Rose Bowl to see USC and Michigan on the same field, but this is now a Big Ten regular season game thanks to the vagaries of conference realignment, as the No. 11 Trojans square off against the No. 18 Wolverines in college football’s Week 4 action on Saturday.

USC makes its Big Ten debut coming in strong, owning a big win against a ranked LSU team in the season opener and flattening Utah State in a 48-0 decision last weekend, ranking No. 7 nationally in passing output with quarterback Miller Moss at the helm.

Even the Trojans’ defense, an often-maligned unit that practically kept the team from the playoff two years ago, has performed better under coordinator D’Anton Lynn’s leadership, ranking 18th in FBS by allowing 10 points per game on average.

Defending national champion Michigan is looking to avoid falling to .500 in head coach Sherrone Moore’s first season, and has already made a change at quarterback, swapping Davis Warren for Alex Orji in an attempt to give the offense a jolt.

Texas dominated the Wolverines in a 31-12 decision two weeks ago at the Big House, snapping UM’s 23-game home win streak, and now Michigan is hoping to avoid a second loss at home to a ranked opponent in the same season.

What can we expect from the matchup this weekend?

For that, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to get a preview for how USC and Michigan compare in this Week 4 college football game.

USC vs. Michigan score prediction

In contrast to most oddsmakers, the simulations are actually going with the home team here.

SP+ predicts that Michigan will defeat USC by a projected score of 30 to 26 and to win the game by an expected 3.9 points.

The model is giving the Wolverines a 60 percent chance of victory over the Trojans.

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 75-68 against the spread with a 52.4 win percentage.

Point spread

USC is a 5.5 point favorite against Michigan, according to the lines at FanDuel Sportsbook, which set the total at 44.5 points for the game.

FanDuel lists the moneyline odds for USC at -200 and for Michigan at +164 to win outright.

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

• Michigan +5.5
• Michigan to win +164
• Bet over 44.5 points

Computer prediction

Other analytical models take a different view of the game from the SP+ projections.

That includes College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times and pick winners.

USC comes out as the expected winner in the majority 57.3 percent of the computer’s updated simulations.

That leaves Michigan as the projected victor in the remaining 42.7 percent of sims.

The index forecasts that USC will be 2.9 points better than Michigan on the same field, not enough to cover this spread.

USC is fourth among Big Ten teams with a 35.7 percent chance to qualify for the College Football Playoff and will win 9.1 games this season, according to the FPI’s metrics.

That model predicts Michigan will win 6.9 games this year and has a 6.6 percent shot at the playoff.

USC vs. Michigan schedule

When: Sat., Sept. 21
Time: 3:30 p.m. ET | 12:30 p.m. PT
TV: CBS network

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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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