Michigan State football is a sizable favorite over Western Michigan in Friday’s season-opener, but one predictive ratings system likes the Broncos to cover the spread. At least, by the skin of their teeth, that is.
Every week during the season, Bill Connelly of ESPN releases his weekly picks for every FBS game based on his famed SP+ analytics predictive ratings system. This will be something we follow throughout the season at Spartans Wire, and measure how accurate SP+ is predicting the outcome of Michigan State football games.
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So how does Connelly and SP+ see the Spartans-Broncos season-opener playing out this week? Well, the system has Michigan State winning by three possessions but just shy of covering the current spread of Michigan State minus-19.5 points. SP+ is predicting the Spartans to win by the final score of 34-15, which would mean Western Michigan covers the spread by the narrowest of margins.
Kickoff between the Spartans and Broncos is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET on Friday from Spartan Stadium. The game will be televised on FS1.
My Thoughts on SP+ Prediction
I personally think this prediction from the model is spot on. I have not yet logged my official prediction for this opener but I have this game landing right around 34-14 or 31-13 in favor of the Spartans, so not much off from the SP+ predicted outcome.
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Complete SP+ Predictions for Week One
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-WMU matchup