Arkansas and Texas Tech will meet in the 2024 edition of the Liberty Bowl game. Here is the latest prediction for the game from an expert football model that projects results and picks winners.

Arkansas will be slightly shorthanded in the game after losing a slew of players to the football transfer portal, and four other key players are preparing for the NFL Draft, including leadback Ja’Quinden Jackson, who scored 15 touchdowns in the SEC’s second-best offense.

Texas Tech will be without wideout Josh Kelly, who has over 1,000 yards receiving this year, as it prepares for the draft, but should be without rusher Tahj Boyd, who has 1,505 yards and 17 touchdowns this season.

What do you think will happen when the Razorbacks and Red Raiders meet?

To do this, let’s turn to the SP+ prediction model to preview how Arkansas and Texas Tech compare in college football’s Liberty Bowl game.

As is often the case, the model favors the SEC team over its Big 12 challenger, although by a narrower margin than in other bowl games.

SP+ projects Arkansas to defeat Texas Tech by a projected score of 32-26 and win the game by an expected margin of 5.8 points.

The model gives the Razorbacks a 64 percent chance of an outright win over the Red Raiders.

SP+ is a “pace- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency” that attempts to predict game outcomes by measuring “the most sustained and predictable aspects of football.”

How good is it this season? So far the SP+ model is 384-352-9 against the spread with a win ratio of 52.1.

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According to updated lines posted for the matchup on FanDuel Sportsbook, Texas Tech is the 1.5-point favorite against Arkansas.

FanDuel set the total score for the game at 51.5 points (over -114, under -106).

And it set the moneyline odds for the overall win for Texas Tech at -114 and for Arkansas at -105.

If you use this prediction to bet on the game, you should…

A slim majority of bettors favor the Red Raiders over the Razorbacks, according to the latest spread consensus picks for the game.

Texas Tech is receiving 56 percent of the bets to win the game and cover the point spread.

The other 44 percent of bets assume that Arkansas will either win outright in an upset or limit the game to one point in a loss.

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Most other analytical football models also favor the Razorbacks over the Red Raiders.

This includes the College Football Power Index, a computer prediction model that uses data points from both teams to simulate games 20,000 times to determine winners.

According to the index, Arkansas is the narrow favorite in the game and is ahead in 56.1 percent of the game’s computer simulations.

That leaves Texas Tech as the presumptive winner with the remaining 43.9 percent of Sims.

How does this translate to the expected lead in the game?

According to the model’s latest projection, Arkansas is expected to be 2.1 points better than Texas Tech on the same field with the current makeup of both teams.

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When: Fri, December 27th
Where: Memphis, Tennessee.

Time: 7pm Eastern
TV: ESPN Network

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The game odds are updated regularly and are subject to change.

If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and needs help, please call 1-800-GAMBLER.

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