There is a four-way SEC tiebreaker scenario that would send LSU and Texas A&M to the league’s championship game instead of Georgia and Texas if those four teams all finish with a single conference loss, with the Aggies’ only setback coming to the Longhorns. The only other stipulation is that all other SEC games the rest of the way are won by the favored team.
It represents a chaos scenario that will likely not happen, but makes for an interesting conversation, especially if Georgia and Texas rank ahead of both LSU and Texas A&M in the projected playoff rankings heading into conference title weekend. The SEC received a request for clarification on tiebreaker scenarios, but a conference spokesperson said it was unlikely the league would speak on what if possibilities in advance.
Should the rest of the season shake out as mentioned in the SEC, it assures the conference of at least three playoff teams and likely four considering Georgia and Texas would be highly-rated 11-win finishers and the loser of the league championship finale would be 10-3 with an impressive resume. No multi-loss team has ever reached the playoff, but that’s going to change in December in Year 1 of expansion.
Here’s how it would happen according to the SEC’s official tiebreaker rules that were announced in August:
Head-to-head competition among the tied teams
Record versus all common conference opponents among the tied teams
Record against highest (best) placed common conference opponent in the conference standings, and proceeding through the conference standings among the tied teams
Cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents among the tied teams
Tiebreaker No. 1 — Yes, Georgia beat Texas head-to-head, Texas A&M toppled LSU and the Longhorns would have a win over the Aggies. However, LSU-Texas do no play, LSU-Georgia do not play and Texas A&M-Georgia do not play. Moving on.
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Tiebreaker No. 2 — Florida is the only common opponent between Texas, Georgia, LSU and Texas A&M. The quartet would each have a victory over the Gators in this scenario. Onto the next phase.
Tiebreaker No. 3 — Again, Florida’s the only common opponent among the four teams in contention. Turn the page.
Tiebreaker No. 4 — Finally, here’s where it ends. Texas A&M and LSU would meet in Atlanta since the combined records of their conference opponents would be better than those of Texas and Georgia. This is where the Longhorns’ favorable schedule in their first SEC campaign could come back to haunt Texas.
Mred created a unique SEC Championship calculator that goes over all of these scenarios. And a Reddit user was the first to point out this chaos predicament the league could find itself in a few weeks from now.
Updated bowl projections, playoff picks in Week 10
This scenario is moot if Texas A&M falls at South Carolina this weekend or Florida upsets Georgia, which is just the tip of an unpredictable iceberg down the stretch.
