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BYU and Arizona kickoff Saturday night at 7:30 pm PST on ESPN, and most pundits and projections favor BYU in this one. Arizona is in the midst of a 12-game losing streak dating back to 2019, and BYU is coming off a 11-1 season and #11 final ranking, although BYU has to replace Zach Wilson and other key contributors.
The projections aren’t unanimously in BYU’s favor, however, and BYU won the last matchup between the two schools in 2018 as a double digit underdog.
Lines and Odds
BYU is favored by 12.5 according to most books, up from the opening line of 9.5. The over/under for the game is 54. The line and over/under aren’t necessarily meant to predict a final score, but if you combine the two then that would mean a final score of 33-21 in BYU’s favor. BYU was favored by one point over Navy in last year’s season opener and ended up winning 55-3.
Arizona was favored by 12 in the 2018 opener, which BYU ended up winning 28-23 in Tucson.
Predictive Rankings
The Sagarin rankings are not high on BYU. They rank BYU 95 and Arizona 81. Sagarin gives Arizona a 68.02 ranking and BYU a ranking of 64.34, meaning Arizona is favored by 3.68 points. Sagarin’s preseason projections seem to be the lowest on BYU.
The Billingsley ratings are much higher on BYU. They have BYU ranked 8(!) and Arizona at 100. These projections favor BYU by 19.167 points.
ESPN’s FPI rankings have BYU at 48 and Arizona at 99. They give BYU a 80.9% win probability.
Composite Rating
Massey’s composite ratings combine 36 different rating sites and combine them into one composite ranking. It doesn’t give score predictions, but it ranks BYU 26 and Arizona 106.