What Are the Remaining Big 12 Title Scenarios?

The Big 12 title scenarios seem pretty straightforward. If OU, Baylor or Oklahoma State win out, they’re the champs. They all control their own destiny. Oklahoma State would be 12-0. So would Baylor. OU would be 11-1 would have beaten any other team that could feasibly be 11-1 and thus hold the tiebreaker (that was put in place after the TCU/Baylor debacle last season).

It gets messy when you look at a one-loss team not named OU winning the conference and three different teams being involved. Like, what if Baylor beats OU and OSU but loses to TCU.[1. I’m presuming Baylor is going to beat Texas at home.] And OSU beats OU and Iowa State and loses to Baylor. And TCU wins out.

That’s when the fun begins.

Here are the tiebreakers, according to the Big 12’s website.

If three or more teams are tied, steps 1 through 4 will be followed until a determination is made. Once a team has been eliminated from a multi-team comparison, it is dropped from further comparisons. If only two teams remain tied after any step, the winner of the game between the two tied teams shall be the Champion.

1. The conference records of the three or more teams will be compared against each other.

In the scenario I mentioned above, TCU, Baylor and OSU would have all beaten each other and incurred just one loss each so this wouldn’t apply. On to the next one.

2. The conference records of the three or more teams will be compared against the next highest placed team(s) in the conference (4, 5 and 6….).

OSU, Baylor and TCU would have all beaten everyone else in the Big 12 so this wouldn’t apply. On to the next one.

3. 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.

#Math

4. Draw (In the event steps 1-3 cannot break a multi-team tie the champion will be determined by draw at the Conference office.

LOL.

I guess my point here is that scoring differential is going to be something to keep an eye on if TCU, Baylor and OSU all beat each other. You know how that can be completely eliminated from the equation? If OSU wins its next two games, it will be the 2015 Big 12 champ.