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OT: Big Ten Football Title

RDUBoiler

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Mar 28, 2011
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A friend of mine posted this elsewhere, and I'm honestly curious if it's accurate and what it might mean for the postseason.

Oregon is the number 1 college program in the country, it's unlikely, but possible they don't make the Big10 championship.

There are three teams in the Big10 that are undefeated, Oregon, Indiana and Pennsylvania State. None of them play each other. Under tiebreaker rules the next tie breaker besides head to head is win margin against a similar opponent. They do all have a similar opponent... Ohio State.

Oregon has already played Ohio State, and beat them by one. If Penn State and Indiana beat them by more and they all finish the year undefeated, Oregon is watching from home.

If the above scenario does happen (which seems unlikely), Oregon could still qualify for the playoffs, right? So it would make the Big Ten Title game essentially worthless.
 
A friend of mine posted this elsewhere, and I'm honestly curious if it's accurate and what it might mean for the postseason.

Oregon is the number 1 college program in the country, it's unlikely, but possible they don't make the Big10 championship.

There are three teams in the Big10 that are undefeated, Oregon, Indiana and Pennsylvania State. None of them play each other. Under tiebreaker rules the next tie breaker besides head to head is win margin against a similar opponent. They do all have a similar opponent... Ohio State.

Oregon has already played Ohio State, and beat them by one. If Penn State and Indiana beat them by more and they all finish the year undefeated, Oregon is watching from home.

If the above scenario does happen (which seems unlikely), Oregon could still qualify for the playoffs, right? So it would make the Big Ten Title game essentially worthless.
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A friend of mine posted this elsewhere, and I'm honestly curious if it's accurate and what it might mean for the postseason.

Oregon is the number 1 college program in the country, it's unlikely, but possible they don't make the Big10 championship.

There are three teams in the Big10 that are undefeated, Oregon, Indiana and Pennsylvania State. None of them play each other. Under tiebreaker rules the next tie breaker besides head to head is win margin against a similar opponent. They do all have a similar opponent... Ohio State.

Oregon has already played Ohio State, and beat them by one. If Penn State and Indiana beat them by more and they all finish the year undefeated, Oregon is watching from home.

If the above scenario does happen (which seems unlikely), Oregon could still qualify for the playoffs, right? So it would make the Big Ten Title game essentially worthless.
Yes they could (and would) still make the playoffs. They would likely be the #5 seed (top 4 seeds go to the 4 highest ranked conference champions). So if your tie-breaking rules are accurate and that scenario plays out, the #1 team in the country would not get a bye in the playoffs.
 
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1. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage in games among the tied teams:
(a) If all teams involved in the tie did not play each other, but one team defeated all other teams involved in the tie, the team that defeated all other teams in the tie is removed from the tiebreaker, and the remaining teams revert to the beginning of the applicable tiebreaker process (i.e., two team or three or more team tie).
(b) If all teams involved in the tie did not play each other and no team defeated all other teams involved in the tie, move to the next step in tiebreaker.

2. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage against all common conference opponents played by all other teams involved in the tie. They actually play 5 common conference opponents: Purdue, O$U, Maryland, UCLA and Washington. That's kinda crazy.

3. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage against the next highest placed common opponent in the standings in order of finish:

4. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents:
(a) In the event of an unbalanced schedule (i.e., less than nine conference games are played), the records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents, regardless of how many conference opponents each team played. If winning percentage is equal for all conference opponents, move to next step in tiebreaker. I've actually done the math here. Currently, Oregon's non-common opponents are 11-9 in conference. Penn State 11-10. Indiana 8-12. Northwestern is dragging Indiana down.

5. The representative will be chosen by the by the highest ranking by SportSourceAnalytics (team Rating Score metric) following the regular season.

6. Random draw among the tied teams conducted by Commissioner or designee.
 
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Yes they could (and would) still make the playoffs. They would likely be the #5 seed (top 4 seeds go to the 4 highest ranked conference champions). So if your tie-breaking rules are accurate and that scenario plays out, the #1 team in the country would not get a bye in the playoffs.
This is true. Same goes for Notre Dame if they were 12-0. They couldn't get a bye and the best they could be is 5. Same with the G5 rep, but it's unlikely anyone there would have an argument otherwise. Looks like Boise right now.
 
If this scenario went forward, with Indiana being odd man out of the BTCG, it would be interesting to see the seeding though between them and the loser of the BTCG. It would be hard to argue that Indiana should be higher seeded than Penn State absent getting blown out by Oregon.
 
To follow up, yeah, if the BTCG is between 2 undefeated teams, they're both going to make the playoff. The question is if it's a 12-0 vs 11-1 and the 12-0 wins. Is 11-2 out? Who's better, 11-2 that got to the title game? Or 11-1 that didn't?

The Big 12 could be in the same boat. Iowa State and BYU are both undefeated and could end up 12-0 against each other. Neither one has that hard a remaining schedule.

The ACC is interesting with Miami looking like a lock, Clemson looking great, but Pitt is hanging around undefeated too.

No idea how the SEC will shake out. But you have to think 4 get in. Which 4?

11-1 ND is in, no matter what. They get Army and USC at the end that could be a challenge.
 
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A friend of mine posted this elsewhere, and I'm honestly curious if it's accurate and what it might mean for the postseason.

Oregon is the number 1 college program in the country, it's unlikely, but possible they don't make the Big10 championship.

There are three teams in the Big10 that are undefeated, Oregon, Indiana and Pennsylvania State. None of them play each other. Under tiebreaker rules the next tie breaker besides head to head is win margin against a similar opponent. They do all have a similar opponent... Ohio State.

Oregon has already played Ohio State, and beat them by one. If Penn State and Indiana beat them by more and they all finish the year undefeated, Oregon is watching from home.

If the above scenario does happen (which seems unlikely), Oregon could still qualify for the playoffs, right? So it would make the Big Ten Title game essentially worthless.
Oregon would easily make the playoff at that point. They would be the 5 seed. Winner of the B1G championship would automatically be one of the top 4 seeds. The loser would be somewhere between 5-12.
 
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1. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage in games among the tied teams:
(a) If all teams involved in the tie did not play each other, but one team defeated all other teams involved in the tie, the team that defeated all other teams in the tie is removed from the tiebreaker, and the remaining teams revert to the beginning of the applicable tiebreaker process (i.e., two team or three or more team tie).
(b) If all teams involved in the tie did not play each other and no team defeated all other teams involved in the tie, move to the next step in tiebreaker.

2. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage against all common conference opponents played by all other teams involved in the tie. They actually play 5 common conference opponents: Purdue, O$U, Maryland, UCLA and Washington. That's kinda crazy.

3. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage against the next highest placed common opponent in the standings in order of finish:

4. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents:
(a) In the event of an unbalanced schedule (i.e., less than nine conference games are played), the records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents, regardless of how many conference opponents each team played. If winning percentage is equal for all conference opponents, move to next step in tiebreaker. I've actually done the math here. Currently, Oregon's non-common opponents are 11-9 in conference. Penn State 11-10. Indiana 8-12. Northwestern is dragging Indiana down.

5. The representative will be chosen by the by the highest ranking by SportSourceAnalytics (team Rating Score metric) following the regular season.

6. Random draw among the tied teams conducted by Commissioner or designee.
Thanks for checking this. I kinda wondered if my friend's ideas were half-baked.
 
To follow up, yeah, if the BTCG is between 2 undefeated teams, they're both going to make the playoff. The question is if it's a 12-0 vs 11-1 and the 12-0 wins. Is 11-2 out? Who's better, 11-2 that got to the title game? Or 11-1 that didn't?

The Big 12 could be in the same boat. Iowa State and BYU are both undefeated and could end up 12-0 against each other. Neither one has that hard a remaining schedule.

The ACC is interesting with Miami looking like a lock, Clemson looking great, but Pitt is hanging around undefeated too.

No idea how the SEC will shake out. But you have to think 4 get in. Which 4?

11-1 ND is in, no matter what. They get Army and USC at the end that could be a challenge.
Yeah, my friend's details were off, but it feels like there is still a lot of potential for chaos.
 
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A friend of mine posted this elsewhere, and I'm honestly curious if it's accurate and what it might mean for the postseason.

Oregon is the number 1 college program in the country, it's unlikely, but possible they don't make the Big10 championship.

There are three teams in the Big10 that are undefeated, Oregon, Indiana and Pennsylvania State. None of them play each other. Under tiebreaker rules the next tie breaker besides head to head is win margin against a similar opponent. They do all have a similar opponent... Ohio State.

Oregon has already played Ohio State, and beat them by one. If Penn State and Indiana beat them by more and they all finish the year undefeated, Oregon is watching from home.

If the above scenario does happen (which seems unlikely), Oregon could still qualify for the playoffs, right? So it would make the Big Ten Title game essentially worthless.
Going away from divisions creates this. With the divisions there is no way 3 or more teams can go undefeated.
 
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And thank goodness. Divisions were 1000x worse.
They weren’t. You just feel that way because you are an IU fan and you sucked for the past 70 years.

Divisions are the only fair way to handle stuff like this IMO. To be judged on a record vs your peers when you play a significantly lighter schedule than your peers is incredibly unfair. Sure, IU is much better this year but are also aided by seemingly the worst conference schedule I’ve seen.

If the league “drafted” divisions every other year based on finish and played a home/away schedule over the 2 year set with one crossover game in the 9th week that served as a play in for the BIGCG, it would be the most fair.

Sure, you’d potentially lose some yearly rivalry games but who cares. We are all out there blatantly chasing the $ now!
 
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