Big Ten Announces Tiebreaker Procedure for Big Ten Championship Game

For the first time in the Big Ten Championship era, the conference will not pit two division champions against each other for the conference crown. With the addition of four new members, bringing the total membership to 18 teams, the Big Ten has eliminated the division format and will simply pit the top two teams in the conference standings against each other at the Big Ten Championship in Indianapolis.

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

The Big Ten has unveiled its updated tiebreaker procedures that will be used this season, should they prove necessary, to determine which teams play in the conference championship game. The first two tiebreakers are fairly straightforward.

The first tiebreaker will be determined by head-to-head matches between two schools. If no head-to-head matches have taken place during the regular season, the next tiebreaker will compare the results of common opponents.

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

If that still doesn’t determine a Big Ten Championship Game participant, the tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative winning percentage of all conference opponents. If that tiebreaker doesn’t break the tie, the team ranked highest by Sportsource Analytics after the regular season will be selected to play in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Finally, in the event of a tie in the analytical ranking, the representative will be chosen at random from all tied teams. Let’s hope this never happens.

The SEC also announced its new tiebreakers for this season, which are mostly the same as the Big Ten’s. Instead of using analytics for the penultimate tiebreaker, the SEC is using a modified margin of victory metric.

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

Penn State’s season opener away to 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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