Stunning Big 12 losses open door for Arizona State in College Football Playoff race

The race for second place in the Big 12 is wide open

Arizona State Sun Devils head coach Kenny Dillingham has his team in position for a potential berth in the Big 12 football title game. / Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

Chas continues to reign in the Big 12.

And on Saturday the chaos fell in favor of Arizona State.

The Sun Devils took care of business on their end, beating UCF 35-31 in a wild game that head coach Kenny Dillingham said "we shouldin't have won." But they did, and it vaulted them closer to a berth in the Big 12 football championship game.

At 4-2 in the Big 12, Arizona State is in a tie for third place, one game behind Colorado for second place. The top two teams earn a berth in the conference championship game — and the winner gets an automatic bid to the 12-team College Football Playoff.

Here's a look at the updated Big 12 standings after Week 11 of the college football season:

1. BYU (6-0)
2. Colorado (5-1)
3. Iowa State (4-2)
4. Kansas State (4-2)
5. Arizona State (4-2)
6. West Virginia (4-2)
7. TCU (4-3)
8. Texas Tech (4-3)
9. Cincinnati (3-3)
10. Baylor (3-3)
11. Houston (3-3)

Iowa State's second consecutive shocking loss — this week a 45-36 defeat at Kansas — opened the door wider for Arizona State. As did losses by Texas Tech and Cincinnati — the two Big 12 teams the Sun Devils have lost to.

ASU's Path to Big 12 Title

Deion Sanders and Colorado control their own destiny in the Big 12 title game race. / Stephen Garcia/Avalanche-Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Kenny Dillingham's team doesn't fully control its own destiny in the Big 12 title game race, but it is creeping closer.

If the Sun Devils win out and finish 7-2 in conference they don't have to worry about the head-to-head tiebreaker with Texas Tech and Cincinnati since they both have three losses.

Of the five teams tied or ahead of them in the standings, they face two of them to close the season — at Kansas State next Saturday and home vs. BYU on Nov. 23. But they don't face Colorado, and the Buffaloes have to lose for ASU to have a shot.

Colorado plays a fairly easy schedule to finish the season — vs. Utah, at Kansas and vs. Oklahoma State — but anything can happen in the Big 12. Utah nearly knocked off BYU on Saturday and Kansas hammered Iowa State. Both of those games present challenges for Colorado.

Big 12 Tiebreaker Scenarios

The Iowa State Cyclones have lost two in a row, but still have a shot at a berth in the Big 12 championship game. / William Purnell-Imagn Images

Let's pretend Arizona State and Iowa State win out, West Virginia loses on the road at Texas Tech and Colorado stumbles on the road at Kansas. That scenario would result in a three-way tie between Arizona State, Colorado and Iowa State for second place — and some wild tiebreaker scenarios.

Here are the tiebreaker rules this season in the Big 12, straight from the conference's website:

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.

In this scenario Colorado will not have played a single team involved in the three-way tie. Per the rules, the tiebreaker would move on to the next step in the process:

• 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.

This scenario would result in identical 4-2 records across all common opponents. So on to the next step in the tiebreaker:

• Record of the three (or more) tied teams against the next highest placed common opponent in the standings (based on the record in all games played within the conference), proceeding through the standings. When arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, use each team’s win percentage against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to that group’s own tie-breaking procedure) rather than the performance against individual tied teams.

This is where the tiebreaker gets really messy because of the parity in the Big 12. It's likely there will be multiple common opponents at 5-4 and 4-5. At this point, who knows how the tiebreaker will play out, but it gives fans an idea of how wide open the conference is — and the complexity of the tiebreaker process.

There are still three more steps in the tiebreaker process before it goes to a coin flip. At this point, a coin flip would be a fitting end to a chaotic season in the Big 12.

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