One of the popular predictive power ratings in college football is not liking the Spartans chances against USC this week.
Bill Connelly of ESPN is back again this week to release his weekly SP+ game predictions, utilizing his popular power ratings system to forecast anticipated results for each game this week. When it comes to Michigan State at USC on Saturday night, SP+ has the Trojans winning by a large margin. SP+ projects USC to beat Michigan State by the final score of 37-19.
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Both Michigan State and USC come into this game with perfect 3-0 records on the year. This will be the Spartans’ first road game of the season, and also their first conference tilt of the year.
Kickoff between the Spartans and Trojans is scheduled for 11 p.m. ET on Saturday from the LA Memorial Coliseum. The game will be televised on FOX.
My Thoughts on SP+ Prediction
The SP+ prediction isn’t far off from the betting line so it’s clear that many are anticipating this to be a convincing win for the Trojans. I’m personally not in that camp as I believe the power ratings that produce the SP+ prediction and betting lines are somewhat skewed from the Trojans running it up on their first two lower-tier opponents to start the year. Maybe there’s some bias here, but I anticipate this game being closer than three scores as SP+ is predicting.
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Complete SP+ Predictions for Week Four
Click on the post below to see the complete breakdown of every FBS game that SP+ has predicted the scores for this upcoming week:
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This article originally appeared on Spartans Wire: ESPN SP+ ratings system predicts final score for MSU-USC matchup
