Big Ten announces tiebreaker procedure for Big Ten championship game

Here is how the Big Ten will break any ties to determine who plays in the conference championship game.

For the first time in the Big Ten championship game era, the conference will not pit a pair of division champions against each other for the conference crown. With the addition of four new members, bringing the total membership up to 18 teams, the Big Ten has done away with the division format and will simply pit the top two teams in the overall conference standings in the Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis.

But what if there is a tie for one of the top two spots?

The Big Ten unveiled its updated tiebreaking procedures to be used this season, should they become necessary to determine which two teams will play in the conference championship game. The first couple of tiebreakers are pretty straightforward.

The first tiebreaker will be determined by any head-to-head matchups between two schools. If no head-to-head matchup was played during the regular season, the next tiebreaker will compare record against common opponents.

If there is still a tie after that tiebreaker, the next tiebreaker will compare the records against common opponents with the best conference record, and will proceed through the common opponents as needed.

If that is still not enough to determine a Big Ten championship game participant, the tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents. Should this tiebreaker not be able to settle the tie, the team with the highest ranking by Sportsource Analytics following the regular season will be selected to play in the Big Ten championship game.

Lastly, in the event of a tie in the analytics rankings, the representative will be chosen at random among all tied teams. Let us all hope it never comes to that.

The SEC also announced its new tiebreakers for this season, and they are mostly the same as the Big Ten’s tiebreakers. Instead of using analytics for the next-to-last tiebreaker, the SEC uses a modified margin of victory metric.

This season’s Big Ten championship game is scheduled for Saturday, December 7 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Penn State’s season-opening road game at West Virginia is one of the hottest tickets of the season for Penn State fans. You can download our schedule wallpaper for your phone.

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