A great deal of offense, in comparison. Lots and lots of Blake Corum. Ultimately, Michigan football emerged
victorious over Alabama in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day.
All of that is included in the prediction produced by our friends at Quarter 4’s Heavy Sports’ AI-powered forecasts
model.
Here are five AI-powered predictions to check out before the game:
Running back Blake Corum of Michigan is predicted by the Heavy model to have a monster game. He will surpass his
season averages in rushing attempts, rushing yards, and receiving yards.
According to the model, Corum will carry the ball 18.7 times (averaging 16.8 this season); gain 98 rushing yards
(79.1); and gain 10,9 receiving yards (6.3).
Those stats would be more fitting given Corum’s horrific final stretch of the regular season. Corum recorded his three
greatest carry totals of the season and three of his five top rushing-yard totals in the Wolverines’ victories over Penn
State, Maryland, and Ohio State.
2. The ball will be handled by both quarterbacks
According to our predictions, Michigan quarterback J.J. McCarthy will commit *more* turnovers than he has on
average so far this season. McCarthy is expected to be down for 0.6 interceptions. In actuality, that is marginally
higher than his 0.3 season average. However, the model indicates that McCarthy’s next interception-free game is
well within the expected range of results.
This makes sense when you take into account that McCarthy has only thrown four touchdown passes this season,
and three of those were in one game against Bowling Green, where he had a poor performance and an ESPN-
calculated quarterback rating of 14.y. McCarthy has thrown 12 touchdowns and just one interception in the ten
games that have passed since.
The interceptions estimate we have for Jalen Milroe, McCarthy’s counterpart for Alabama, is also 0.6 for the game.
With six interceptions this season, Milroe has been a little more prone to interceptions than McCarthy. However, in
the last few weeks of the season, he has been outstanding, tossing seven touchdowns and no interceptions in a row.
This includes the Tide’s 27-24 victory against Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, which had two touchdowns
and no interceptions.
Our predictions do not anticipate an all-out shootout, but they do indicate a game that will probably score a little bit
higher than you may anticipate given the consensus among online sportsbooks with US addresses.
46.5 is the total number of points that our model predicts. That is more than a full point higher than any of the
sportsbooks in our database, even though neither team would find that unusual.
A points total in the mid-40s or above for the match would be consistent with both teams’ recent results.
The Wolverines participated in eight straight games with more than 45 points scored after Michigan’s first four
games had point totals under 46. This run came to an end with the 26-0 victory in the Big Ten title game.
Furthermore, even in the Michigan football team’s lowest-scoring games of the season, the Wolverines managed to
score at least 24 points, and in 11 of those games, at least 30 points.
Alabama’s scoring output has been significantly less productive, scoring fewer than 30 points in seven of its 13
games. However, in their last six games, the Crimson Tide have still scored 50 or more points overall. These games
include back-to-back road victories over Kentucky (November 4–11) and LSU (November 28–28).
The Michigan football team was unique, even in comparison to other teams vying for championships, in that the
Wolverines participated in relatively few games that were even somewhat competitive. Michigan played only three
games that were decided by a single digit margin of victory, outscoring its opponents by an average of more than 27
points per game.
James Turner, the kicker, saw comparatively little significant action as a result. Additionally, the Heavy model
anticipates Turner to play more because the Alabama game is probably going to be considerably tighter than the
most of the games Michigan has played this season.
Turner is among the players most likely to have numbers that deviate from his season-long norms, according to our
estimates. We predict that he will attempt 2.1 field goals and make 1.6 of them.
Turner has only attempted more than two field goals twice this season, even if 2.1 attempts isn’t a particularly high
quantity. By coincidence, Michigan’s last two games were a 26-0 thrashing of Iowa in the Big Ten Championship
Game and a 30-26 victory over bitter rival Ohio State. (Turner went 3-for-3 against Ohio State and 4-for-4 against
Iowa, showing that he was flawless in moth games.)
In general, our model is more optimistic about Michigan than most large bookmakers are. Our model anticipated
Michigan’s point spread to be 3.5 points as of Wednesday night. That’s two full points more in favor of Michigan than
all seven of the bookmakers in our database, even if it doesn’t differ significantly from the consensus of the
sportsbooks.
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