BYU's shocking loss puts Arizona State in position to win Big 12
A pretty good Saturday just got a lot better for the Arizona State football team.
A little over three hours after finishing off No. 16 Kansas State 24-14, the Sun Devils watched No. 6 BYU fall to Kansas 17-13.
The loss dropped BYU to 6-1 in the Big 12, just one game ahead of Arizona State (5-2) with two games to play.
And the Cougars travel to Tempe, Arizona, next Saturday to play the Sun Devils.
Updated Big 12 Standings
It's basically a four-team race between BYU, Colorado, Arizona State and Iowa State for the two berths in the Big 12 football championship game. After another Saturday of wild upsets, here's a look at the top of the standings:
- BYU (6-1)
- Colorado (6-1)
- Arizona State (5-2)
- Iowa State (5-2)
- Baylor (4-3)
- Kansas State (4-3)
- TCU (4-3)
- Texas Tech (4-3)
- West Virginia (4-3)
Every game is an elimination game for Arizona State, which is how they have been operating for weeks. But now the Sun Devils don't need help. If they win their final two games they will, at worst, finish in a tie for second place in the Big 12. Then the crazy tiebreaker scenarios begin.
Big 12 Tiebreaker Scenarios
If the Sun Devils can beat BYU next week — and Colorado and Iowa State win — it would create a three-way tie for second place behind Colorado. And if all four teams win their finales, and the season ends in a three-way tie for second ... well, good luck with the tiebreaker rules:
In the event of a tie between more than two teams, the following procedures will be used. After one team has an advantage and is “seeded”, all remaining teams in the multiple-team tiebreaker will repeat the tie-breaking procedure. If at any point the multiple-team tie is reduced to two teams, the two-team tie-breaking procedure will be applied.
a. The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage in games among the tied teams:
- If all teams involved in the tie did not play each other, but one team defeated all other teams involved in the tie, the team that defeated all other teams in the tie is removed from the tiebreaker, and the remaining teams revert to the beginning of the applicable tiebreaker process (i.e., two team or three or more team tie).
- If all teams involved in the tie did not play each other and no team defeated all other teams involved in the tie, move to the next step in tiebreaker.
Arizona State, Iowa State and BYU will not all play each other this season, so we move on to the next step in the tiebreaker:
- The records of the three (or more) tied teams will be compared based on winning percentage against all common conference opponents played by all other teams involved in the tie.
In this scenario, Arizona State would win the tiebreaker. The Sun Devils would finish 4-0 against common Big 12 opponents, while both BYU and Iowa State would finish 3-1. That would land the Sun Devils in the Big 12 championship game against Colorado — with the winner claiming the Big 12 title and an automatic berth in the College Football Playoff.
With two weeks to go, Arizona State suddenly controls its own destiny.
More Arizona State & Big 12 Analysis
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. One of his favorite memories was covering the 1999 Fiesta Bowl - the first BCS National Championship Game - at Sun Devil Stadium.