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Oklahoma State Looks Destined for the Alamo or Russell Athletic Bowl

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My buddy Amilian asked me a few weeks ago how disappointed I would be with a worst case scenario of a 10-2 season and Alamo Bowl appearance against a Pac-12 team. Achievement unlocked!

Here’s how it all works.

The Big 12 is tied to the Sugar Bowl so the Big 12 champ goes to the Sugar Bowl unless it goes to the College Football Playoff. OU is going to the College Football Playoff so the second-place Big 12 team goes to the Sugar Bowl.

There’s going to be a three-way tie for second between TCU, OSU and Baylor if Baylor wins next weekend. The Sugar Bowl confirmed that the conference tiebreaker determines who goes to its bowl.

So let’s go to the conference tiebreaker.

These three teams all lost to each other and OU. That means we have to go to scoring differential among the three games they played against each other.

Scoring differential among the tied teams. The team with the lowest difference between points scored and points allowed in games vs. the tied teams are eliminated from consideration.

Nice grammar there, Big 12. “Team … are.”

Anyway, the way I understand this, TCU is eliminated first because it has the worst scoring differential of the three in their games against each other. Then OSU and Baylor are compared head to head. That means Baylor wins the tiebreaker and goes to the Sugar Bowl. It doesn’t make a ton of sense, but hey, the Big 12 doesn’t make a ton of sense in general.

So then OSU would go to the Alamo over TCU, I think.

UPDATE: I was still using the tiebreaker (in this case, head-t0-head) in saying OSU would go over TCU to the Alamo Bowl. When you get past the New Year’s Day Six,  bowls actually then get to pick rather than using tiebreakers so TCU could potentially go over OSU to the Alamo Bowl if the Alamo Bowl picks them.

The Alamo gets first pick of Big 12 teams after the New Year’s Day stuff is decided. Would they pick TCU over OSU? Probably. That would leave OSU in the Russell Wilson Athletic Bowl on December 29 against an ACC team (UNC?). If the Alamo Bowl picks OSU, that game is January 2 against a Pac-12 team in San Antonio.

Of course if Texas wins next week, OSU goes to the Sugar Bowl. This all stinks of course, but it could be worse. Think about this from TCU’s perspective. They’re a two-point conversion in Norman from being the Big 12 champs.

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