100 Tennessee vs. Illinois simulations predict a close Music City Bowl

The Tennessee Volunteersfell to the Vanderbilt Commodores in Week 14 − marking our only incorrect prediction using EA Sports College Football 26 − and now we're back to see how No. 23 Tennessee (8-4) will fare against Illinois by running 100 simulations of their Dec. 30 bowl game.

It's been a long road leading to this moment at the end of the Tennessee football season, and it means the end of my column predicting the outcomes of each game using a video game. Underneath those Tuesday night lights, we'll see if the video game will have correctly picked the winner of Music City Bowl in Nashville.

For me, writing this column was a nice break from my typical day-to-day reporting - in this case pressing the same button combinations repeatedly while recording the stats.

While it might seem like I was just playing video games for work (a dream job perhaps), there isn't a lot of playing the game involved. Instead, the program speeds through each game to get to the outcome, and afterward I navigate menus and score boxes to fill out my color-coded spreadsheet. During this process, I began piecing together the overall winner and common threads in each matchup.

The video game has been pretty accurate overall correctly predicting the general outcome of the games throughout this season, including the losses to Alabama, Georgia and Oklahoma — minus the big 45-24 loss to No. 12 Vanderbilt, after the video game narrowly gave the win to the Vols, though it had predicted a 45-23 Vanderbilt win in Game 55.

I booted up EA Sports College Football 26 one last time to predict how the Volunteers will fare Dec. 30 in Nashville, setting kickoff to 6 p.m. with partly cloudy skies to get as close as possible to Tuesday's predicted conditions. The game includes every bowl game, so all 100 simulations were completed in the Music City Bowl.

The teams face off in real life at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 30 in Nashville, and the game will be shown on ESPN. 

Here's what the video game predicts will go down between the Volunteers vs. the Fighting Illini in the Music City Bowl on Dec. 30 in Nashville.

Tennessee vs. Illinois in EA Sports College Football 26

The Tennessee Volunteers went 69-31 across 100 games, with the Vols outrunning the Illini handily in most of the games, but the passing game will keep it close.

However, nearly half of the simulations (43) were decided by seven points or fewer, and seven games went to overtime. Tennessee won six of those overtime games.

Here's what the video game predicts for the Tennessee Volunteers vs. Illinois Fighting Illini football game Dec. 30:

• Predicted score: Tennessee 32, Illinois 26 (based on average points across 100 simulations)
• Tennessee average yards: 135 rushing, 282 passing, 521 total (including special teams)
• Illinois average yards: 107 rushing, 279 passing, 494 total (including special teams)
• Turnovers: Tennessee turned the ball over 95 times, compared to Illinois' 113 turnovers.

While the game favors Tennessee, the individual games were close with many games decided in the final few minutes of regulation. Even in games where the opening half seemed to spell out who would win, the second half became a fight on either side to crawl back to the lead. Additionally, almost all of the games were high scoring, so at the very least the real bowl game should be fun to watch. While it might feel too close for comfort, the video game had the Vols winning more times overall.

Here are some more highlights from our 12th round of simulations:

• Biggest Tennessee win: 55-16
• Biggest Illinois win: 48-13
• Closest games: 23-22, Tennessee; 24-23, Tennessee; 22-21, Tennessee
• Highest scoring game: 46-44, Illinois in OT
• Lowest scoring game: 17-3, Illinois
• Biggest surprise: Two games ended with a safety as the final points scored, which is the first time I recall any game in this series ending with a safety, let alone two

Knox News sports reporter Adam Sparks also thinks it will be a close game, predicting a 45-42 Vols victory.

A look back at the Tennessee Volunteers' football season

Looking back over the year, the video game typically predicted correct winner but the outcomes rarely lined up with the actual point totals.

Take, for example, the opening game against Syracuse. The game predicted a 22-15 Vols victory based on the average points, but the real total was 45-26.

The only time the game got any score totals correct was in the Florida game where it correctly predicted the Vols would score 31 points over the Gators, but the averages incorrectly had Florida scoring more than the team did in the real game.

The yardage was closer overall, with the video game getting within 50 yards of the real rushing, passing and total yards (including special teams) in several games, according to stats recorded by UT Athletics. However, there was only one instance where any yardage stat lined up with the game's prediction: the video game correctly predicted that New Mexico State would have 400 total yards (rushing, passing and special teams combined) against UT.

EA Sports predictions compared to actual outcomes this season: Using the video game, Knox News is 11-1 with these types of projections, correctly predicting Tennessee (8-4) would lose to Georgia, Alabama and Oklahoma. The only miss was against Vanderbilt.

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Keenan Thomas is the higher education reporter for Knox News. Email: [email protected].

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: 100 Tennessee vs. Illinois simulations predict a close Music City Bowl