ESPN FPI heavily favors Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Mississippi State football

Saturday afternoon, the Mississippi State football team will face an Arkansas Razorbacks squad that has lost five games in a row. Can Zach Arnett get a pivotal win?

Things haven’t gone according to plan for Zach Arnett and the Mississippi State football team. But this Saturday, the Bulldogs have a chance to get going back in the right direction as they get set to face off against the Arkansas Razorbacks in Fayetteville.

Both Mississippi State and Arkansas have failed to find a way to get a win over an SEC team so far this season. The Razorbacks are in the midst of a miserable five-game losing streak. And despite that, it looks like ESPN’s stats and Football Power Index and the math and computers behind it all don’t really expect MSU to come out on top of this one.

And it’s not like Arkansas isn’t a flawed program (that’s fairly obvious given that Arkansas is 2-5 overall and 0-4 against SEC foes), but it sure looks like ESPN’s FPI tends to trust Sam Pittman’s Razorbacks to win this one.

Mississippi State football vs. Arkansas prediction: ESPN FPI favors Razorbacks over Bulldogs

In ESPN’s simulations of the Bulldogs’ road game vs. the Razorbacks, the Mississippi State football team is apparently found to win just 33 percent of the time. In other words, ESPN’s analytics seems to believe the Razorbacks will win in essentially two-thirds of all simulations available.

So… That’s not great.

I, for one, don’t love it that ESPN Analytics has Arkansas winning against MSU in two out of every three simulations.

There are a few things that do happen to work in the Bulldogs’ favor here. Mississippi State is coming off of a bye week while the Razorbacks have played seven games in a row (and they’ve lost their last five matchups).

While the Bulldogs almost certainly won’t be fully healthy, it is generally a good thing to get a little rest after a difficult stretch. Thankfully the Mississippi State football team got some rest. Meanwhile, Arkansas is in the midst of their own difficult stretch.