With the help of our trusty, TRACR-powered supercomputer, we’re providing college football predictions for every game each week.
As always, our projection model is spitting out its data-backed predictions for all college football games throughout the 2024 season.
In a relatively wide-open landscape this year, traditional SEC powerhouses Alabama and Georgia are among the favorites to win the national championship. Tennessee and Ole Miss are also contenders, with SEC newcomer Texas showing it’s also a legitimate threat.
Big 10 teams Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State all expect to be vying for a place in the newly expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. Miami could have its best team in over a decade and has established itself as ACC title favorites over Clemson.
Utah and Kansas State are the early favorites in an unpredictable Big 12, while Boise State, Notre Dame, and SMU hope to make the playoff from outside the Power Four conferences.
Now, all of that is a little far in the future to be given much consideration yet, but our TRACR-powered supercomputer is continuing to make predictions for every game this season.
TRACR (Team Rating Adjusted for Conference and Roster) is a net efficiency stat that measures how a team should play against a standardized level of competition. The model is based on an EPA (expected points added) calculation weighed by opponent strength.
A team with a TRACR of 0.0 is considered an average team in the FBS. So if a team with a 7.5 TRACR faced a team with a minus-3.0 TRACR, the better team would be a 10.5-point favorite, according to the model.
Virginia Tech and Miami will kick off the AP top-25 slate in Week 5 on Friday night and the week will conclude with Pac-12 turned Big-10 rivals Oregon and UCLA playing on Saturday night. For those matchups and everything between, we’ve taken plenty of data, pumped it through our predictive model and come up with its Week 5 predictions.
Each week throughout the NCAA football season, our model has something to say about every game. No matter if it’s a headliner like Ohio State visiting the Michigan in another chapter of a legendary rivalry, or a game we may all be a bit less excited about, it unsentimentally beeps its way through the model’s college football picks, boldly dropping predictions for each.
Here’s a look at all our Week 5 predictions, including Carson Beck and Georgia as the best bets against Jalen Milroe and Alabama, Louisville defeating Notre Dame in South Bend, Penn State remaining undefeated and handing Illinois its first loss and more.
Friday Night
No. 39 (TRACR rank) Virginia Tech 12.2% at No. 5 Miami (FL) 86.8%
Miami has won three consecutive games against underdog Virginia Tech, its longest win streak against the Hokies since 2000-02 (also three straight). The Hurricanes are looking to win their first conference opener since doing so in 2020 against Louisville.
No. 14 Washington 72.9% at No. 48 Rutgers 27.1%
Saturday
No. 57 Minnesota 31.4% at No. 21 Michigan 68.6%
Michigan is 32-3 against Minnesota since 1980, the third-best record by any FBS team against an opponent it has played at least 35 times over that span. All three wins by Minnesota over that span have come on the road.
No. 26 Kentucky 8.1% at No. 3 Ole Miss 91.9%
Ole Miss has a point differential of plus-198 so far, the highest by any SEC team through four games of a season in the past 45 years. The last FBS team to have a better mark over its first four games was Baylor in 2013 (+217).
No. 12 Louisville 40.4% at No. 10 Notre Dame 59.6%
Notre Dame ranks fifth in the FBS with 6.71 yards per carry, its highest average through the first four games of a season since 2017 (6.74). The Irish have had eight rushing plays of 30+ yards this season, tied with Iowa for the most in the FBS.
No. 24 Arkansas 47.3% vs. No. 18 Texas A&M 52.7% in Arlington, Texas
Texas A&M has won 11 of the 12 meetings with Arkansas since joining the SEC, with the Razorbacks’ lone win coming in 2021. The Aggies have a 9-4 lead in games played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, including eight of the nine SEC matchups there.
No. 69 Wisconsin 17.7% at No. 11 USC 82.3%
This will be the eighth meeting between Wisconsin and USC, with the Badgers winning the most recent matchup 23-21 in 2015. Prior to this win, the Trojans had won the first six games of this series from 1952-66 by an average margin of 14.3 points.
No. 83 Mississippi State 2.2% at No. 2 Texas 97.8%
Texas routed ULM 51-3 and has allowed just 22 points this season – tied for third fewest in the FBS (Georgia, 18; Ohio State, 20) and its fewest through four games since 1977 (21). Texas’ +168 point differential is the largest through four games since that 1977 season.
No. 44 Oklahoma State 38.9% at No. 22 Kansas State 61.1%
After averaging 6.1 yards per carry last season, Ollie Gordon II is gaining 3.3 yards per rush this season, the largest decline by any FBS running back (min. 40 rushes each year). Last year’s leading rusher in the FBS has gained under 50 yards in each of his last three outings.
No. 56 Colorado 27.3% at No. 16 UCF 72.7%
No. 36 Maryland 39.1% at No. 17 Indiana 60.9%
No. 92 Western Kentucky 15.6% at No. 19 Boston College 84.4%
Saturday Night
No. 77 Stanford 10.7% at No. 9 Clemson 89.4%
Clemson rushed for 269 yards in its 59-35 win over NC State, its second straight game with 250+ yards. The Tigers had not done so in consecutive games since November 2021 and have not done so in three straight since 2019.
No. 25 Iowa State 74.3% at No. 74 Houston 25.7%
Rocco Becht has thrown multiple passing touchdowns in seven straight games, tied for the second-longest active streak in FBS behind Syracuse’s Kyle McCord (eight). It is the longest such streak by any Iowa State QB over the past 25 seasons.
No. 7 Georgia 44.4% at No. 6 Alabama 55.6%
Georgia has lost eight of its last nine games against Alabama dating back to 2008, the team’s most losses against any opponent over that span. In each of the last six meetings between these teams, one or both teams have ranked in the AP top five entering the game
No. 4 Ohio State 90.3% at No. 47 Michigan State 9.7%
Ohio State has won eight straight against Michigan State – last losing in 2015 – and has won nine straight in East Lansing, last losing there in November 1999. The Spartans have lost 10 straight against top-five teams dating back to the 2015 Cotton Bowl against No. 2 Alabama.
No. 35 Illinois 18.8% at No. 8 Penn State 81.3%
Penn State has won 11 of its last 15 games against Illinois dating back to 2005. The Nittany Lions’ 11 wins over Illinois are their second most against any opponent over that span (Indiana minus-15).
No. 71 South Alabama 22.6% at No. 20 LSU 77.4%
LSU is 19-1 against Sun Belt opponents, with the lone loss coming in 2017 against Troy (24-21). South Alabama is 1-6 against SEC foes, with the lone win coming in 2016 at Mississippi State (21-20).
No. 52 Arizona 34.2% at No. 23 Utah 65.8%
Utah has won 31 straight home games against unranked opponents, the fourth-longest active streak in the FBS (Alabama – 79, Ohio State – 51, Oregon – 36). The Utes are 79-12 in such games under head coach Kyle Whittingham.
No. 13 Oregon 80.1% at No. 63 UCLA 19.1%
From 2008 to 2023, Oregon went 10-1 against UCLA, making it the second-most lopsided matchup in the Pac-12 during that span (USC 12-0 vs. Colorado). The lone loss occurred in Pasadena on Oct. 21, 2017 (Bruins won 31-14).
AP Top 25 teams not ranked in the TRACR top 25 rankings: No. 11 Missouri (idle), No. 21 Oklahoma (at Auburn), No. 22 BYU (at Baylor), No. 25 Boise State (vs. Washington State).
Stats and facts provided by Stats Perform’s data insights team. Be sure to check out our MLB, NBA, NFL and CFB coverage. And follow us on X and Instagram for more!