The long-awaited declaration is finally here: Oklahoma is back in the drivers’ seat in terms of appearing in the Big 12 Championship. Following a 1-2 start, the Sooners have slowly climbed the Big 12 standings. With Iowa State’s 38-0 win over Kansas State, the Sooners now sit firmly in a third-place tie with Texas.
With a win against Oklahoma State on Saturday, Oklahoma can move into a three-way tie for second place (alongside Oklahoma State and Texas). Given that Oklahoma has already beaten both of these teams, the Sooners would be in control in terms of tiebreakers.
There are still a handful of ways for Oklahoma to win out and miss the conference championship, but they are few and far between.
The chaos scenario, without any huge upsets from the bottom half of the Big 12 over the top half, is this: should Iowa State lose another game and Texas lose to Kansas State, it would create a three-way tie between Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Iowa State. In this case, because Oklahoma lost to the fourth-place team (Kansas State) and the other two did not, Oklahoma would be eliminated from contention.
There are other potential doomsday scenarios, but they would require a major upset win, such as West Virginia defeating Iowa State. Read our Big 12 scenarios post and our post on Oklahoma’s Big 12 fate for more details.
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