Pac-12 Championship path scenario

[SteelUte]

Does anyone that’s not dealing with Quickbooks customer service know what the Utes path is to Vegas is?
We need to beat Washington and have them lose to Washington St and or Oregon St?
Do we have the tie-breaker on USC if we both win out?
We aren’t catching Oregon, but we’d have to win out and they would have to lose 3 right?
Is 1st tie breaker head to head?

[tanute3]

Need Utah to win out, need Oregon to win out, and need Washington to drop either OSU or Wazzu…

This scenario gives Utah the H2H over Washington (both will have 2 conference losses) and gives USC, AZ, and OSU at least 3 conference losses. Would be Utah vs Oregon in the title game.

[2008 National Champ]

1. There are 4 or 5 path(s) at this point. UW at 8-1 or 9-0, Oregon at 8-1 are automatically in. Tanute laid out one of the Utah/Oregon paths. There are a couple that end up with Utah/UW, and I can even come up with one where Utah has a rematch against Oregon State. I don’t believe there is a path where Utah would face SC again.

2. Utah has to win out to make the CCG

3. Utah has the tie-breaker over USC and the SOS tie-breaker over everyone. Utah would have the head to head tie breaker over UW but not Oregon State or Oregon

4. Oregon only needs to lose 2 for Utah to pass them

5. 1st tie-breaker is head to head. The rest can be found here

[DataUte]

I love these scenario ‘what-ifs’. I think it’s covered well and there are still 3 games to play (2 for USC), so lots of permutations. I’m glad we have the H2H over USC (they have to have much more chaos to make it as the 2 seed) and if we don’t get the H2H over UW, it won’t matter. Too bad we lost to both Oregon teams, but good they play each other to add a loss (would eliminate OSU; L puts UO at risk but could still be a 2 seed).

Tanute has the straightest path which still requires some help. Only UW and UO control their own destiny.

Other than that scenario, we have to get into a 3+ team tiebreaker (but not with UO, OSU because we’d be 0-2 and one of them would be 2-0, the other 1-1). With others, if all 3 were 1-1, we’d get the SOS (step 2 of multiple-team ties). It it was a 4 way tie, gets really complicated fast.

PAC12 FPI has Oregon at 57.9% of winning conference, UW 31.1%, 3.5% for OSU, 3.0% for USC, 2.5% for Utah, 1.9% for Arizona. I wish they had a column for making the CCG since getting there and winning it are different things. In other words, let’s beat UW and see how that changes the % up!

[2008 National Champ]

Oregon State also controls their own destiny.

[DataUte]

ooh, good call (perhaps). What an end to their season! But would have H2H over UW, UO, Utah. But if UW ended 8-1, there could be a 3-way tie for 2nd seed between Oregon (or USC), OSU, Ariz at 7-2 (hopefully not – that would mean Utah loses to UW and Arizona). Arizona beat OSU, OSU beat Oregon, Arizona didn’t play Oregon. So, goes to step 2 – not sure who wins based on common conference opponents. OSU might lose their H2H advantages …

At this stage, if each of the top teams won out (individually, can’t all happen of course), it would cause:
-UW 9-0: Utah best 6-3, Ore St best 6-3 –> definitely control own destiny, can even drop 1
-UO 8-1: USC best 6-3, Ore St best 6-3 –> definitely control own destiny, could drop 1 and still might get in
-Ore St 7-2: UW best 8-1, Ore best 7-2 –> might be in control of destiny but may not get through in some 3-way tie scenarios (probably would be against Oregon + Arizona or USC + Arizona – lost to UA, didn’t play USC, but have H2H over UO, UW, Utah if needed)
-Utah 7-2: UW best 8-1 –> need UO to win out and UW to drop another game or a few other multi-team tiebreaker scenarios to play out (lost to UO and OSU, would have beaten UW, USC)
-USC 7-2: Ore best 7-2 –> could make CCG but need help (beat UA, losses to Utah, UW)
-Arizona 7-2: Utah best 6-3 –> need to get in the ‘right’ multi-team tie for #2 seed (lost to UW, USC, but beat OSU)

[2008 National Champ]

It’s close. I believe OSU has the slight advantage because I’m not sure Arizona can get in without the right tie-breakers and they are the only one that OSU wouldn’t have the advantage over. I’ve tried about a dozen times since Saturday to run out different scenarios and once I get down to which 1-5 team beats another 1-5 team to give potential 7-2 team the advantage, I lose interest in that path.

With 27 games left, it feels like there are still about a million possibilities. I just don’t have the coding ability to game it out.

[The Miami Ute]

I’m not a fan of any scenario that has Utah playing Oregon in the CCG. I can almost guarantee you that Lanning would not be calling off the dogs during that game.

[2008 National Champ]

I’m more a fan of Utah losing to Oregon in the CCG than I am of them not making it at all. You can’t win it if you don’t get there in the first place.

Having the kids get the chance after everything that has gone on this season, even if it’s only 1% (it isn’t), would be a huge reward. They will have earned every bit of it. And I guarantee that they will want the chance, no matter the opponent.

[The Miami Ute]

You misread me. I’d definitely take another shot at Oregon instead of watching the CCG at home. However, I’d much rather play Washington or Oregon State in the game. I think playing either of those teams in a neutral environment would give Utah a much better chance at a victory.

[2008 National Champ]

No, I’m with you. I was trying to piggyback off your point, not disagree.

Right now, Oregon would be my least favourite opponent, followed by Oregon State. Washington is tough but I’m looking at it as Utah would have already beaten them once to get there. Washington’s weaknesses also match Utah’s strengths whereas the other two have both shown that they can be successful.

[krindor]

At this point it’s pretty tough to get through every possibility. There are 131072 different ways that the rest of the PAC12 season could play out. In 31808 of those, Utah ends up at least tied for second.

Trying ot figure out tiebreakers there gets ugly. Right now the idea is to beat Washington next week. And hope that Oregon and/or Washington lose again. Washington wouldn’t have the tiebreaker, Oregon would but a multi-team tie could still have us win out atie that involves them