Alabama Football: A math-based look at Bama vs. NMSU

This is not a week that Alabama football fans will need to worry much about the outcome of the game. New Mexico State is overmatched and barring a minor miracle, they won’t be winning in Tuscaloosa come Saturday. However, we can take a look at what the statistics say about the spread.

Well, I would say that my first math-based prediction was a success. Even with all of the unknown factors going into the first game of a new season, the math said Alabama football by 41 and when all was said and done Bama beat Duke by 39. I’ll take a two-point difference.

After a slow start and the concern about replacing Dylan Moses, Alabama was able to put those concerns to bed in the second half of a 42-3 drubbing in Atlanta. It wasn’t always pretty and those first game mistakes reared their ugly head at times but Alabama football got the job done in pretty convincing fashion.

Now we take a look ahead to New Mexico State. Simply put, NMSU does not have the talent to stay with the Crimson Tide. I mean no disrespect, but NMSU has been to 4 bowl games in 86 seasons. The last time they went was 2017 and before that, it was 1960. This according to sports-reference.com.

So, it’s not really a question of, “IF” Alabama football will win on Saturday it’s a question of “by how much”. Since my first math-based prediction was accurate I thought why not continue.

What do the numbers say about Alabama v. NMSU? After another deep dive into last year’s statistics and considering how both teams looked in their openers, it is safe to say the numbers were not kind to NMSU. This week I had to adjust the formula a bit to account for the fact that Alabama will likely have this game in hand by halftime and at least by the middle of the third quarter.

Running the formula as it was would assume that Alabama played full strength and at a normal offensive pace for the whole game. It wouldn’t account for Alabama and NMSU slowing down the pace later in the game just to run out the clock. Therefore these adjustments were necessary to ensure that a ridiculous final score prediction was not given. (When I first ran the formula as-is Alabama was predicted to score 96 points which is nice but not realistic)

Upon tweaking the formula and accounting for the pace of play late in the game, I was able to get to a spread prediction and final score that I am (somewhat) comfortable with. Just as a reminder, this model is intended mostly to predict the spread of the game, not the exact final score.

Las Vegas currently has the spread set at Alabama by 54. It’s honestly a toss-up on whether Alabama covers or not. My gut says Alabama doesn’t cover, but the numbers say they will. With Saban’s history of shutting it down late in games I’d put my money on NMSU to cover the spread.