Should Big 12 change its championship rules?

[jkjsooner]

Should the Big 12 stop awarding co-championships when head-to-head can determine the winner?

Right now the head-to-head tiebreaker is only used to determine who gets the bowl birth. It is not used to determine the conference champion. I know a lot of people felt uncomfortable with our 2012 Big 12 title.

And for lurking Texas fans, we're not talking about three way ties here. Head-to-head can not be used to determine the champion when there is a three way tie. Maybe someone in your math department can explain it to you.

[badger]

Solution: Grudge match during championship week. We continue to have 10 teams, we continue to have all teams play everyone else... and then a rematch between the top two ranked teams in the final week. Rawr bring it on

[jkjsooner]

Solution: Grudge match during championship week. We continue to have 10 teams, we continue to have all teams play everyone else... and then a rematch between the top two ranked teams in the final week. Rawr bring it on

I'd go for that if the NCAA allowed it.

You think Texas was upset back in 2008, wait until there's a 3 way tie and they have to choose two for the title game and Texas is the odd man out. ;)

[UteSooner]

I considered the grudge match earlier this week. It just doesn't sit well with me to consider a team that went 9-0 in conference having to play some team twice. I realize you get those scenarios with divisions and a championship game as well. It just bothers me more with the round robin schedule. At least the leader of one division had to play a different schedule than the leader on the opposite side.

Do I recall the media saying the round robin schedule was more difficult back when it was USC and the Pac 1? Seems like they used to for some reason.

If we are keeping at 10- keep the round robin but lose co-championships. Maybe petition for the chance to play 1 more OOC game so the champions of other conferences don't end up with more games played. Then ban FCS teams and mandate 1 or 2 power 5 OOC games.

[tycat947]

Should the Big 12 stop awarding co-championships when head-to-head can determine the winner?

Right now the head-to-head tiebreaker is only used to determine who gets the bowl birth. It is not used to determine the conference champion. I know a lot of people felt uncomfortable with our 2012 Big 12 title.

And for lurking Texas fans, we're not talking about three way ties here. Head-to-head can not be used to determine the champion when there is a three way tie. Maybe someone in your math department can explain it to you.

This has been done for EVERY Big 12 sport since the inception of the Big 12 in 96. It was done in Big 8 as well. You want to potentially take away the OU Women's Gymnastics NC from last year since they tied with Florida? Hypocrite U beat TCU but Hypocrite U LOST to WVU. TCU didn't! That's what tiebreaker rules are for.

[yermom]

the grudge game could hurt getting extra teams into what used to be BCS games, or into the playoff itself though

[jkjsooner]

This has been done for EVERY Big 12 sport since the inception of the Big 12 in 96. It was done in Big 8 as well. You want to potentially take away the OU Women's Gymnastics NC from last year since they tied with Florida? Hypocrite U beat TCU but Hypocrite U LOST to WVU. TCU didn't! That's what tiebreaker rules are for.

I'm not asking to change women's gymnastics and I assume they actually tied in competition rather than one having head to head over the other. (Could be wrong. I really have no idea.)

And I'm not pushing to remove all ties. I think a three/five/seven/nine way title split is perfectly fine if those teams have the same record both in conference and amongst themselves. (Can you imagine a nine way tie where Kansas goes 0 for 9 and the rest all go 5-4 in conference and 4-4 against the other tied members? Would be crazy.)

Forgot to mention, I remember hearing that this was done in the Big 8. I just don't remember it happening much. Maybe I just assumed the representative in the Orange Bowl was the undisputed conference champion. I think most years OU and NU were undefeated except against each other or else one of the two went undefeated in conference so as it worked out there weren't a lot of ties.

[jkjsooner]

Well, the first year I thought of where it may have happened it did in fact happen. I knew OU lost to KU in '84 but beat NU. NU did in fact go undefeated in conference outside of OU that year and did in fact get a share the Big 8 title. I certainly didn't realize that.

I did know the Big 12 would have awarded co-champions even with head-to-head but I didn't know it actually happened that year.

[yermom]

Check out all the T-1's in the conference column here:

http://www.soonerstats.com/football/seasons/index.cfm?decade=all#.VIfAd3ZMGzA

[8timechamps]

I think it needs to be addressed the same way they addressed the issue when the BCS was involved. There's no need to do away with the co-champions, but there needs to be an internal process to determine who represents the conference as champions for the purposes of the selection committee.

It's not difficult:

2 way tie - Head to head solves the issue.
3 or more way tie - head to head to eliminate any teams, then take the highest ranked team (according to the CFP poll).