Tiebreaker Step Seven (Or Why College Football and Politics DO Mix)

May 13, 2009 by Tom Cudd

There was a somewhat interesting piece of news last week was pretty much glazed over and forgotten by all of the Big 12 schools except Texas, Oklahoma, and (sort of) Texas Tech. The coaches of the Big 12 had tiebreaker talk on the agenda last week in Phoenix, AZ. Why was it a non-story? Because the coaches decided to maintain the status quo. The seven step process that the Big 12 uses to determine a tie between three or more of the schools in a division is staying the same.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Big 12 process to determine the Division Champion in a three way tie, big12sports.com has kindly placed the rules here. My favorite tiebreaker is step seven, or "The representative will be chosen by draw." I say, why not? Let's elevate that up the list, because it seems to be about as effective as selecting the team with the highest BCS ranking after the Big 12 regular season.

In 2008, Texas, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech were in a three way tie at the end of the regular conference season. Big 12 officials had to fall back on step 5 of the tiebreaker system, or "The highest ranked team in the first Bowl Championship Series Poll following the completion of Big 12 regular season conference play shall be the representative." Oklahoma edged Texas out of the title game by 13 thousandths of a point and went on to defeat Missouri and then play in the National Championship game. As one could imagine, this was a small point of contention with the other members of the three way tie.

So the coaches had to discuss if something needed to be done. What was discussed behind those doors? Well, we know what a couple of the coaches have said and which option was on the table. Texas Tech's Mike Leach advocated falling back to graduation rates to determine the winner, which he has kindly pointed out many times. If we were to utilize some sort of academic-related statistic, I would of, of course, recommend using the Academic Progress Rate reported on by the NCAA.

But in all seriousness, the point reviewed was actually the one favored by Mack Brown and currently used in the SEC. Their tiebreaker removes all but the highest two teams ranked in the BCS and then utilizes their head-to-head game as the tiebreaker. Much less complicated and fewer steps. Of course, nobody wanted to rock the boat or buck the system. The coaches decided to reject the proposal. Throughout the whole process, Mike Leach was coming up with ridiculous ideas that were just used to make a point, and Mack Brown put an asterisk on the South Championship last year. This makes me think, instead of Congress getting involved in college football, maybe these college coaches should be getting into politics with their antics.

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