Give me a rest-of-season scenario and I’ll tell you how the tiebreakers play out

[krindor]

Just spent some time getting myself real acquainted with the tiebreaker rules, and have a bit of time today so happy to answer any scenarios you might be wondering about.

[MauchDawgUte]

Assume Utah loses on Saturday and beats Colorado. What do we need to happen to be in the championship game still?

[krindor]

At that point we’re 7-2 in conference.  So we’d need two things

1. Only 1 (or no) team with a single loss (so we’d need a USC loss to UCLA OR an Oregon loss to Oregon St)

2. Winning the tiebreaker – best way for this is if Washington wins out.  

If we’re in a tie with USC, UCLA (likely if UCLA beats USC) then we’d be out, since UCLA beat both of us.  But if Washington were also in the tiebreak, the 1st tiebreasker gets skipped and it goes to common opponents. Everyone has played Arizona and only UCLA lost so they’d get knocked out and then Utah would be in based on strength of conference schedule

If we’re in a tie with Oregon (so USC beat UCLA), then they get in over us.  But once again, if Washington gets added in, then that first tiebreaker is skipped and it ends up going to strength of conference schedule.  So we win.

Or if both USC and Oregon lose (to UCLA and Oregon St respectively) it gets really hairy, but we’d be in actually a very strong spot despite losing to Oregon.  As long as there’s a large tiebreaker, that first step gets skipped and we have the strongest conference schedule.

 

[ALUF]

Oregon wins out
Utah beats Colorado
UCLA wins out
Washington wins out

Oregon vs who?

[ALUF]

Scenario 2…very crazy but I’ll ask. Oregon beats us and loses to the beavers. UCLA wins out. Utah loses to Colorado. Washington wins out. 5 way tie. Who is in?

[NarfUte]

Utah would need to beat Colorado for a 5 way tie, but that’s the one that confuses me the most.

Utah, USC, UCLA, Oregon, UW all at 7-2.

[ALUF]

Oh duh…yeah what happens then with the 5 way tie. Thanks for your work and response

[krindor]

Utah would need to beat Colorado for a 5 way tie, but that’s the one that confuses me the most.

Utah, USC, UCLA, Oregon, UW all at 7-2.

Assuming you’re asking for the 5-way tie scenario (which does require Utah to beat Colorado), it would be Oregon vs Utah, though the #1 or #2 status would be up in the air.

1st tiebreaker would be skipped (because not everyone played one another).
2nd and 3rd tiebreaker looks at common opponents and would eliminate UCLA (since they have the loss to Arizona which is one of the few teams all of those 5 tied teams have played).
4th tiebreaker is strength of conference schedule. Unless Stanford loses to Cal, Arizona beats Arizona St and Oregon St beats Arizona St, Utah would be the #1 seed based on a stronger strength of conference schedule. If all those results happened, Oregon and Utah would tie for strength of conference schedule and Oregon would get the #1 seed.

As it turns out, it doesn’t much matter though because whichever of Utah/Oregon didn’t get in as seed #1 would get in as Seed #2. With that many teams tied, it would again go to strength of conference schedule.

[NarfUte]

Makes sense, once the first team is seeded and the tiebreaks reset, having UW in there is a huge benefit to Utah since we didn’t play them. I can stomach being a Husky and Bruin fan for a couple weeks (First preference is Utah to take care of business, obviously)

[krindor]

Oregon wins out
Utah beats Colorado
UCLA wins out
Washington wins out

Oregon vs who?

Would be Oregon vs Utah. USC, Utah, UCLA, Washington would all have 2 losses. Because they didn’t all play one another, 1st tiebreaker would be skipped. 2nd and 3rd tiebreakers would go through common opponents and eliminate UCLA (for their loss to Arizona). 4th tiebreaker would be conference strength of schedule which would be Utah

[NarfUte]

So, big UCLA fans on Saturday for a little insurance

[krindor]

Probably, but also we’re wanting Washington to win. As a general rule this year, the more complicated the tiebreaker is, the better it is for Utah.

Utah has (almost certainly) the toughest conference strength of schedule among the group and with more teams involved, it’s easier to get down to that tiebreaker level

[SalUteopia]

Thanks for doing this, krindor! Assuming UO beats us and OSU, and UW wins out, who should we root for in USC vs UCLA?

[ALUF]

Yeah this is big time that you did this! Thank you!

[krindor]

If Oregon beats us and Oregon St, then they only have one conference loss and we have 2. So we’d absolutely need USC to lose to UCLA to give them 2 conference losses, otherwise both Oregon and USC would be ahead of us.

If it ends up USC, Utah, UCLA all tied with 2 losses, then it goes to UCLA since they’d have beat both us and USC

But if Washington also in in there with only 2 losses (which means they win out), then it goes
Tiebreaker 1 (H2H): Skipped since not all teams in tiebreaker played one another
Tiebreaker 2 (Common opponents): Common conference opponents are Arizona, Arizona St, Colorado, Stanford. The only loss against any of those opponents would be UCLA so they’d be eliminated.
Tiebreaker 3 is just going through common opponents one at a time so wouldn’t make a difference here
Tiebreaker 4 is conference strength of schedule which would go to Utah.

[ALUF]

So Washington is pretty much mathematically eliminated right? Is there a scenario where they get in?

[krindor]

Washington could still get in. Only way I see it is that if Utah loses to Oregon AND to Colorado (giving us 3 losses), UCLA loses to USC (giving UCLA 3 losses) and Oregon then loses to Oregon St (giving them 2 losses).

At that point 1 loss USC is Seed #1 and Washington wins the tiebreak over Oregon for Seed #2

[krindor]

As a bottom line here’s the biggest factors

1. Utah needs to win, that’s the biggest help. Interestingly, we can theoretically get in even with a loss to Oregon, but a loss to Colorado would likely doom us, even if we beat Oregon.

2. Generally speaking, we want UCLA to beat USC. If we beat Oregon that gives us a near-guarantee (barring us losing to Colorado, UCLA beating Cal and Washington losing to either Colorado or Wazzu). If we lose to Oregon, it at least keeps us alive, but then we’re definitely rooting for Washington to win out.

3. Washington winning is hugely helpful to us for purposes of tiebreakers.

[krindor]

There’s actually a scenario where UCLA ends up in a 4-way tie for 2nd.

Tied with Washington, USC and Utah. All of whom they would have beat. And yet they wouldn’t win the tiebreaker in that group – Utah would.

[GameForAnyFuss]

Thanks to this thread, my head exploded and now there’s brains all over my monitor. The janitorial crew is gonna be p**sed.