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Old 11-13-2022, 01:51 AM   #1207
Solecismic
Solecismic Software
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Canton, OH
Next week's USC/UCLA and Oregon/Utah next week could very well be play-in games for the Pac 12 championship. I did some playing around with the tie-breaker, which is quite convoluted since many of the top teams do not play each other this season.

This is only if there are no more upsets - the combinations of tied teams change everything and UCLA as it stands now would fare very poorly in ties specifically because they lost to Arizona of all teams, since Arizona is the only team that has played all tied teams, and not lost to them all.

The winner of Oregon/Utah is in and USC is in by defeating UCLA. If USC loses, then the loser of Oregon/Utah is in. Assumptions include Colorado and Cal playing as they have this season, Oregon beating Oregon State and Washington beating Washington State.

As for what this means for the playoff? USC is a one-loss team with a one-point road loss to Utah. Everyone else is already at two losses. Tennessee is a lucky loser and the SEC champion is in, so if LSU beats Georgia, everyone outside the SEC complains bitterly because they might get three if there's only one undefeated team.

I think we have to assume the SEC has only two to make enough room for USC at 12-1 (this would also include a win over Notre Dame at that point). Then you deal with possible undefeated TCU (still a long way to go) and the Michigan/Ohio State winner. 12-1 USC is ahead of the ACC champion. A two-loss Pac-12 champ would need a lot of help to get in, probably too much to consider it likely.

We have four undefeated teams, four one-loss majors and eight two-loss majors entering next weekend.
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