Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
Utah is one of the top teams in the country, checking in this week again at No. 13 in the College Football Playoff rankings. Only two Big 12 teams are ranked higher than the No. 13 Utes — No. 6 Texas Tech and No. 12 BYU. But Utah lost to both the Red Raiders and the Cougars, and that’s why they’re on the outside looking in on the Big 12 championship game with three weeks remaining in the regular season. Texas Tech (6-1 Big 12), BYU (5-1), Cincinnati (5-1) and Houston (5-2) are all ahead of the Utes (4-2) in the Big 12 standings. With two losses in conference play, the Utes do not control their own destiny, even if they win out. “Could get interesting here as we go along. We are not really concerned with it, I mean we’re concerned with it, we don’t focus on it,” said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham. “We’re still in the hunt mathematically as a couple teams had losses this past weekend, but we just got to keep doing our thing. We just know that we have to win this week. I mean that’s our bottom line and if we are able to get a win on Saturday, then we stay in the hunt and we’ll see what happens with everybody else.” Utah will need help to get to their first Big 12 championship game, much like the 2022 season, when the Utes needed three outside results (Washington beating Washington State, Oregon State beating Oregon and UCLA beating Cal) to go their way on the last weekend of the season. Utah won a four-step tiebreaker to punch its ticket to the Pac-12 championship game, where it defeated USC 47-24 to claim the conference title in back-to-back years. What’s the path for Utah to head to the Big 12 championship game this year? First and foremost, the Utes will need to win their last three games. Utah will be favored in all of its remaining contests, but winning out is no sure thing, especially with two of its last three on the road. ESPN’s analytics give Utah a 78.7% chance to beat Baylor, an 85.4% chance to beat Kansas State and an 80.8% chance to beat Kansas, with the odds of Utah winning all three of those games at 54.3%. TeamBig 12 recordTexas Tech6-1BYU5-1Cincinnati5-1Houston5-2Utah4-2Arizona State4-2Arizona3-3TCU3-3Baylor3-3Kansas State3-3Iowa State3-4Kansas3-4West Virginia2-5UCF1-5Colorado1-6Oklahoma State0-6 If the Utes can take care of business this week in Waco, Texas, where they are 8.5-point road favorites, and win at home against Kansas State on Nov. 22, Utah fans will be scoreboard watching next week when BYU travels to Cincinnati to take on the No. 25 Bearcats. Any scenario for the Utes to make the Big 12 championship game is a long shot, but the most plausible scenario for the Utes to go to Arlington is if Cincinnati beats BYU, the Bearcats lose one game to either Arizona or TCU, Texas Tech wins out and a few games featuring Arizona State and Houston break the Utes’ way. If Cincinnati beats BYU, then loses either vs. Arizona or at TCU, BYU loses to Cincinnati, but wins home games vs. TCU and UCF and Utah wins out, the Utes, Cougars and Bearcats would each have a 7-2 conference record. The first step of the Big 12 multiple-team tiebreaker rules rules (more than two teams tied) is winning percentage in competition among the tied teams, which is why it is important for Cincinnati to beat BYU, since no team in this scenario would have the edge over the other — Utah beat Cincinnati, Cincinnati beat BYU and BYU beat Utah. BYU, Cincinnati and Utah do not share a single common conference opponent, making the second and third steps of the tiebreaker — “win percentage against all common conference opponents among the tied team” and “win percentage against the next highest placed common opponent in the standings” irrelevant. Even if Arizona State goes undefeated and joins BYU, Cincinnati and Utah in the tiebreaker, neither of those teams have a shared conference opponent. The tiebreaker would then move to step four: ”combined win percentage in conference games of conference opponents (i.e., the strength of conference schedule).” When it gets down to opponents’ conference winning percentage, it gets a lot more complicated. If Arizona State wins out (vs. West Virginia, at Colorado and vs. Arizona), Utah would own the tiebreaker over BYU, Cincinnati and Arizona State with a higher conference opponent win percentage, no matter what happens with Houston. If Houston wins out, Utah will need Arizona State to not lose out. In the event of Arizona State defeating West Virginia and Colorado but losing to Arizona, Utah would need Houston to win at home vs. TCU, win out, or lose both vs. TCU and at Baylor for Utah to secure a spot in the Big 12 championship game due to conference opponent win percentage in a three-way tie between Utah, Cincinnati and BYU. There are other scenarios, too. Another more far-fetched one would be if BYU lost to both TCU and Cincinnati, the Bearcats lost to either Arizona or TCU and either Arizona State or Houston dropped at least one game. It’s still a long shot, but as the Utes enter the home stretch of the season, they still have a chance at a Big 12 title game appearance — as long as everything breaks just right. “There’s still a way for us to get to the championship. That’s still on our mind. That’s been our goal since the beginning,” said Utah quarterback Devon Dampier. “... We know we got to win out from here on out.
