What Actually Has to Happen for Oklahoma State to Make the Big 12 Title Game

Oklahoma State is technically still alive in the Big 12 title race, but the car pulled into the Cowboy Travel Plaza on its way out of Stillwater and everyone played musical seats.

Oklahoma and TCU are both buckled into the driver’s seat and Iowa State slid to the right. Oklahoma State relinquished shotgun for the back seat with West Virginia. Kansas State and Texas had to sit in the trunk.

Sorry, Texas Tech, Baylor and Kansas, you will have to Uber to Arlington on your own dime if you want to spectate.

Let’s take a look at the three weeks left and how each team’s path to the first Big 12 title game is lays out.

Nos. 1 – Oklahoma and TCU

Both TCU and Oklahoma each individually have the most straightforward path to Arlington. Win out and you’re the No. 1 seed in the title game. The team that loses this Saturday in Norman could still win its last two games and be No. 2, getting them in the title game — as long as Oklahoma State wins in Ames.

OU schedule: TCU, at Kansas, WVU
TCU schedule: at OU, at Tech, Baylor

No. 2 Iowa State

If the Cyclones beat the Cowboys this Saturday in Ames, they would be tied with the loser of OU-TCU and are in the fortunate position of holding the head-to-head tiebreaker against both teams. Basically for the ‘Clones, it’s win out and you are guaranteed to be in the title game, even after the road loss to West Virginia. But the Mountaineers did make things interesting. More on that later.

ISU schedule: OSU, at Baylor, at KSU

No. 2 Oklahoma State

The Cowboys no longer control their destiny after the home loss to Oklahoma. But that doesn’t mean they are out yet. First off, for a ticket to Jerryworld, OSU has to win its last three games. Then either OU or TCU need to lose at least two more. The loser between the Sooners and Frogs should still be favored to win out in its last two games so the chances aren’t great.

The most likely scenario is that Oklahoma wins (go Sooners, right?) and then TCU loses on the road to Texas Tech. Go Raiders! If instead TCU beats the fighting Bakers, Oklahoma just has a game in Lawrence and West Virginia at home left and you’re counting on them to come up short in one of those two to get to three losses. Go Fighting Red Bulls!

OSU schedule: at ISU, KSU, KU

No. 2 West Virginia

Yes the Mountaineers, who took an ugly home loss in a sloppy game to OSU, are still technically alive after defending home turf against Iowa State. Their prospect of making the title game looks something like this.

First off, they have to win out starting with a visit to Kansas State this Saturday. Then Texas visits Milan Puskar before the ‘Neers head to Norman to face Oklahoma. If they can pull that off — they’ve helped several teams’ cases by handing OU a loss — but still need Oklahoma State to come up short in Ames or against one of the Kansas teams since the Cowboys won the head-to-head in Morgantown.

There still could be a nightmare scenario where 1. OU beats TCU and Kansas and loses to West Virginia 2. TCU loses to OU but gets wins at Texas Tech and over Baylor 3. Iowa State beats OSU and wins out at Baylor and at Kansas State and 4. West Virginia wins out and ends with two losses. Now you’ve got a four-way tie for first and a nightmare the Big 12 accounted for this summer which we’ll get to in a minute.

WVU schedule: at KSU, UT, at OU

No. 3 Kansas State

Here’s where we get into the strictly hypothetical probably. If the Wildcats were to win out — West Virginia at home, at Oklahoma State and Iowa State at home — it would at least tie with those teams teams in the loss column, thus passing all three with the head-to-head tiebreaker.

But K-State would still need either Oklahoma or TCU to lose out to make it to the No. 2 spot, having lost to both teams. So basically, a miracle would be required.

KSU schedule: WVU, at OSU, ISU

No. 3 Texas

The Longhorns also sit at 3-3 in conference play but only play one team above them in the last three weeks. So if the ‘Horn were to win out, against Kansas, at West Virginia and over Texas Tech, it would still need some combination of two of Oklahoma, TCU and OSU ending with four losses. It holds tiebreakers over Kansas State and Iowa State.

UT schedule: KU, at WVU, TTU

Mathematically eliminated: Texas Tech, Baylor and Kansas

In case there is a tie of three or more teams as referenced above, the Big 12 has set rules in place to determine seeding.

The tiebreaker for any two teams, as mentioned above, is always the head-to-head record. When three or more teams are tied, Step 1 is a “round-robin” comparison of the conference schedules for all tied teams. So, let’s say OSU, OU and TCU all end at 7-2. OU and TCU are 1-1 in that round robin and OSU is 0-2 so OU and TCU move on.

If that step doesn’t get you to two teams, you move on to Step 2, comparing records against the other conference teams, starting at the top and working down. That’s where it gets very complicated.

An interesting scenario is TCU losing to OU and Tech, OSU winning out and WVU winning out (thus beating OU). OSU, OU and WVU would be 7-2 and would all be 1-1 against each other so it would go to record against other conference teams. Depending on how it shakes out, ISU and TCU could be tied as the top “other” teams. OSU, OU and WVU would have all split against those two which means …

You move to Step 3 which compares point differential. Oklahoma State’s point differential against OU and WVU is +1, OU is currently +10 and WVU is currently -11. So there can’t be a tie. But if there could …

Then you Step 4 — literally drawing two names from a hat.

“A single slip of paper for each institution (with name or logo) will be placed in a container and will be drawn in order of seeding from highest to lowest.”

What a fiasco. If any of this actually becomes a talking point over the next three weeks, the Big 12 has around a zero percent shot of getting a team into the College Football Playoff.

If you’re Bob Bowlsby and Co., you’d like things to pan out with either TCU or Oklahoma (or both) making it to the title game in Arlington for a shot to impress the committee with that vaunted 13th data point.