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    Here’s an initial look at where IU football stands in the race to the Big Ten Championship game

    Mike SchumannBy IU Football No Comments
    Photo by Mike Schumann, The Daily Hoosier

    IU football needs help to defend its Big Ten crown in Indianapolis next month.

    That’s where we’re at a month removed from what will likely be the last league championship game before we move to a 24-team College Football Playoff.

    But there’s still a lot to play out.

    Trailing undefeated UCLA, and tied with a Ohio State team it lost to, Indiana (5-1 in league play) is currently third in the race to Lucas Oil Stadium.

    But with Indiana and Ohio State dealing with quarterback uncertainty, and UCLA having some interesting tests ahead (and also starting a backup quarterback), there’s still likely to be plenty of twists and turns before December.

    And coming into Saturday’s action, there were no less than seven two-loss Big Ten teams still waiting in the wings.

    This could get chaotic.

    Going into Saturday’s action, ESPN’s FPI still says Ohio State has the best percentage chance (44.5%) to win the conference championship, followed by Indiana (37.8) and UCLA (10.2).

    While IU is currently knocked out by the head-to-head tiebreaker, a UCLA loss that creates a three-way tie could actually put IU in first place if IU, UCLA and OSU all finished with one loss.  A three-way tie eliminates the head-to-head tiebreaker, and the next — record against all common conference opponents — could favor the Hoosiers in the three one-loss teams scenario.  That’s due to the second tiebreaker, and would depend on which of its remaining games UCLA lost.

    Here is who each team plays the rest of the way:

    • UCLA:  at Minnesota, vs. Illinois, at Michigan, vs. USC
    • Indiana:  Bye, vs. USC, at Washington, vs. Purdue
    • Ohio State:  vs. Oregon, vs. Northwestern, at Nebraska, vs. Michigan

    With so many games and scenarios remaining, we won’t try to solve this riddle just yet.

    For now, below are the complete Big Ten Championship game tiebreakers.  The league works through these sequentially until the tie is broken.

    We’ll revisit this each week as things unfold:

    BIG TEN CHAMPIONSHIP GAME TIEBREAKERS

    1. The tied teams will be compared based on head-to-head matchups during the regular season.

    2. The tied teams will be compared based on record against all common conference opponents.

    3. The tied teams will be compared based on record against common opponents with the best conference record and proceeding through the common conference opponents based on their order of finish within the conference standings.

    4. The tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents.

    5. The representative will be chosen based on the highest ranking by SportSource Analytics (team Rating Score metric) following the regular season.

    6. The representative will be chosen by random draw among the tied teams conducted by the commissioner or designee.

    For complete coverage of IU football, GO HERE.

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