CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Four => Big Ten => Topic started by: medinabuckeye1 on November 10, 2025, 02:29:28 PM
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At this point the 2-loss teams are still mathematically in the race but as a practical matter they are out because while one or two upsets could happen, the 2-loss teams would need a plethora of unlikely upsets. Thus, the race for all practical purposes is down to five teams. Here they are with what they have left:
- 7-0 Indiana: vs UW, off, at PU
- 6-0 Ohio State: vs UCLA, vs RU, at M
- 5-1 USC: vs IA, at Ore, vs UCLA
- 5-1 Oregon: vs MN, vs USC, at UDub
- 5-1 Michigan: at NU, at UMD, vs tOSU
Note that with USC and Oregon playing each other the maximum number of teams that can finish with one loss or less is four: Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan, and the USC/ORE winner.
If there is a 2-way tie the tiebreaker is H2H unless the teams didn't play. In the event of a tie involving more than two teams H2H only controls if all the tied teams played each other or if one of them beat all of the others and neither of those things are mathematically possible so the operative tiebreaker would most likely be "cumulative league record of league opponents" (aka SoS) and at that point here it is:
(https://i.imgur.com/tevHBwi.png)
This is bad news for the Hoosiers and Buckeyes (if they should lose) and it is really bad news for Michigan because even if they manage to win out they can't get to the CG without help. Note that USC's opponents are four games ahead of Michigan's opponents while Oregon's opponents are six games ahead of Michigan's opponents. That isn't likely to be made up down the stretch so basically Michigan needs the Oregon/USC winner to drop a game somewhere along the line.
Bottom line:
- 7-0 Indiana: Just win baby. A loss would devastate their CG hopes as probably the only tie they could win would be a 2-way tie with Oregon.
- 6-0 Ohio State: Just win baby. Any loss would probably knock the Buckeyes out of the CG. A loss to either UCLA or Rutgers would probably put them in a tie with the Oregon/USC winner and a loss to M would add the Wolverines to that tie and the Buckeyes would likely lose any of those ties.
- 5-1 Oregon/USC: Win out and hope the Buckeyes or Hoosiers lose to their rivals.
- 5-1 Michigan: Win out and hope for either Iowa to take out USC in SoCal or UDub to take out Oregon in Seattle and then for whichever team (USC or ORE) lost to beat the other. Either of those would create a 2-way tie that they would win based on H2H.
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Since I know @Brutus Buckeye (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=31) will ask and @ManHawk (https://www.cfb51.com/index.php?action=profile;u=2351) may also be interested:
For the two-loss teams (Iowa, MN):
They can only tie Indiana. They also need Ohio State to lose at least two of their last three, for Michigan to lose at least one of their last three, and for the Oregon/USC winner to lose a game. All of that gets them into at least a tie for a slot in the CG but they still have to win that tie.
For the three-loss teams (UNL, UDub, NU, IL, UCLA):
They can't catch IU as the Hoosiers can do no worse than 7-2. They can catch tOSU but only if the Buckeyes lose out which would also give Michigan another win so they'd need Michigan to lose their other two and for the Oregon/USC winner to lose their other two and for the Oregon/USC loser to lose at least one additional game. All of that would create a tie at 6-3 for the second CG spot between at least the following teams:
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- The Oregon/USC winner
So they could mathematically get into a tie but it isn't realistic and even if they did get into that tie, they'd still have to win that tie.
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I still am not sure if 3-loss Nebraska, Illinois, NW, UCLA and Washington are all mathematically eliminated but I am not going to try to prove it.
Every time I get into 3-way or 4-way tiebreakers, my head starts spinning.
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I still am not sure if 3-loss Nebraska, Illinois, NW, UCLA and Washington are all mathematically eliminated but I am not going to try to prove it.
Every time I get into 3-way or 4-way tiebreakers, my head starts spinning.
That is where I am as well. If there is a potential 4-way tie heading into the final weekend, I'll figure it out but I'm not spending the time to figure out a hypothetical 4-way tie that has basically no chance of actually happening.
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Practice makes perfect. :098:
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it's not gonna happen