SEC-W:
Division leader Alabama (5-0) hosts third place LSU (3-1). It is an elimination game for the Tigers because with a loss they couldn't catch Bama.
technically they could. bama could still lose to msu and au, giving bama 2 losses. if au also lost to uga or aTm (giving au 2 losses) and/or msu wins out, giving them only 2 losses, there could be a 3-4 way tie between bama, lsu, au and potentially msu.
not gonna go through the tie breakers to see what would happen in each of those scenarios, though.
I guess it is possible but the SEC tiebreaker does not make much sense to me,
link.
First, in the two-team tie section they have tiebreakers beyond H2H, why? All the teams in the division play each other so there will always be a H2H winner, no? H2H is the first tiebreaker and the other seven seem superfluous to me.
The three (or more) team tiebreaker is:
- H2H...2H
- Divisional record
- Record against the next best team in the division, then the next, then the next, etc
- Overall conference record against non-divisional teams (if Divisional record is tied and the teams are tied then doesn't non-divisional record have to be tied?)
- Combined record against all common non-divisional teams
- Record against the best team in the other division, then the next, etc
- Best cumulative conference winning percentage of non-divisional opponents
- Coin flip
Ok, could LSU to catch Bama after a loss to Bama?
The short answer is theoretically yes but practically impossible (even more impossible than you think). LSU would have H2H losses to potential 6-2 teams Bama and MissSt and a H2H win over Auburn.
LSU would NOT win the hypothetical 4-way tie with Bama, MissSt, and AU because their H2H2H2H in that group is 1-2. Thus, the Tigers would need MissSt not to be involved.
Additionally, LSU would need Auburn's other loss to be to aTm and not Georgia because if AU beat aTm then they would win the 3-way tie based on tiebreaker #2, Divisional record.
That 3-way tie would then go to tiebreaker #3, record against the next best team in the division. LSU, Bama, and AU would all be 1-1 against each other and their "other" loss would be:
- Bama: MissSt
- LSU: MissSt
- AU: aTm
That doesn't help LSU because if Auburn is eliminated then LSU is back to the two-team tiebreaker with Bama and they lose that so aTm and MissSt would have to finish with the same record.
That would move us to tiebreaker #4 which, as I said above, appears to be superfluous. It is in this case as they would all be 2-0 vs the SEC-E.
Tiebreakers #5&6 would also be irrelevant for the same reason (all three are 2-0).
That would get us to tiebreaker #7, cumulative conference winning percentage of non-divisional opponents. As of today, their non-divisional opponent records are:
Bama:
- 0-5 Vandy
- 0-5 Tennessee
- 0-10 total
Auburn:
- 5-0 Georgia
- 0-4 Mizzou
- 5-4 total
LSU:
- 3-3 Florida
- 0-5 Tennessee
- 3-8 total
The only way LSU can win on this tiebreaker is if Florida and Tennessee end up with a better combined SEC record than Georgia and Mizzou.
List of what has to happen for LSU to win the SEC-W after losing to Bama:
- LSU wins out (vArk, @TN)
- Bama loses out (in conference @MissSt, @AU)
- Auburn loses to aTm, beats UGA and Bama
- MissSt (after beating Bama) loses to either Ark or Ole Miss
- aTm (after beating AU and losing to LSU) finishes with the same SEC record as MissSt
- Florida and Tennessee somehow overtake Georgia and Mizzou in combined final record despite being 4 games behind in the loss column and despite Tennessee losing to LSU.
Note that LSU can and probably will be mathematically eliminated this weekend because if they lose and AU beats aTm then there is no mathematical way for LSU to get to Atlanta.