Breaking down how Big 12 Championship tiebreaker picture changed

Entering Week 12, there is a four-team tie for second place in the Big 12 — and there has been some confusion on what will happen if the season ends and two teams are still tied for the final spot in 2023’s championship game.

Sooner Scoop’s Georgia Stoia and Eddie Radosevich joined On3’s Andy Staples on his show to help break down the conference’s current situation to clear up any confusion that might still be had on all tiebreaker scenarios.

“That leaves a lot of discrepancy of what’s going to happen these last two weeks lots of football to be played,” Stoia told Staples. “As you said, you can kind of plug it into a machine and it pops out. Going into this, the assumption is, look, you could have a situation where Texas wins out. They’re in there already in first place, but you have a situation where you could have Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Kansas State all win out and there’s a three-way tie for second — so who gets in?”

Logically, Oklahoma State has wins over both Oklahoma and Kansas State — so it only makes sense that they should be the ones that should get in. Instead, that’s not the case thanks to the conference’s tiebreaker rules.

“According to the rule, as it’s written right now, the tiebreaker rule reads as though if there were a situation where there are multiple team ties — which this would fall into that category — and they did not play head to head. Oklahoma and Kansas State did not play this year and they will not play this year. Then, it goes to the second tiebreaker rule, which is win percentage against a common opponent in that scenario.

“Kansas State, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma all played UCF, Kansas and Iowa State. Kansas State would advance because they went 3-0, against those three teams. Oklahoma went 2-1 and Oklahoma State with 1-2. So, the belief heading into this last couple of weeks was that Kansas State, in that scenario, would get in.”

Now, that rule could be subject to change thanks to a meeting between Big 12 Conference officials regarding the news’ backlash. In the meeting itself, according to Stoia, there was a lot of talk about the rule being written wrong by the Big 12 in the first place. Now, a statement from the conference could come as soon as Wednesday.

Of course, a tiebreaker scenario isn’t guaranteed — but the Big 12 is covering its bases if that were the case. Whether the rule is changed to lean on head-to-head matchups remains to be seen — but it doesn’t seem as though we’ll be waiting very long to find out.