Final weeks of SEC season loom large with 12-team playoffs; What are the tiebreaker rules to get to title game?
OXFORD, Miss. — After their 28-10 win over Georgia Saturday, Ole Miss has vaulted itself back into contention for the 12-team College Football Playoffs. The Rebels are currently ranked No. 10 in the nation by the Associated Press this week and eagerly await the release of the College Football Playoff Committee’s rankings on Tuesday night.
Four SEC teams were in the projected playoff bracket in Tuesday’s inaugural rankings reveal.
Currently, Ole Miss, Alabama, LSU, Missouri and Georgia each have two conference losses — and A&M, Texas and Tennessee, each with one SEC defeat, have some league games remaining that could send them into the two-loss category. And then, of course, there’s the SEC title game where one more loss will be assigned to one of the participants.
We took a quick look back in history at the two-loss national championship teams. Interestingly, only two national title winners have finished with as many as two losses since the inception of the AP Poll in 1936 — a list that includes the Coaches Poll, BCS, and the College Football Playoff. Ole Miss was involved in both occurrences, as a matter of fact.
1960 Minnesota
The first team to win a national title with two losses was an 8-2 Minnesota team in 1960, a team that somehow edged out Johnny Vaught’s undefeated Rebels for the title.
Ole Miss’ only blemish on their 1960 record was a 6-6 tie to LSU, but the Rebs finished 10-0-1 on the season after a win over Rice in the Sugar Bowl.
Back in those days, the final edition of the AP poll came out BEFORE the bowl games, and Minnesota lost the 1961 Rose Bowl to Washington.
Ole Miss would’ve easily been voted the national champion in both the AP and UPI had the final votes been tallied AFTER the bowl games had been played — as they have been since 1968 in the AP and 1974 in the Coaches. It’s worth noting Ole Miss was named national champion by the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA).
It took bowl game losses by their No. 1 teams for the pollsters to get this permanently changed where rankings were not released until after the postseason.
2007 LSU
LSU is the one truly legitimate 2-loss championship team over the past nine decades, but even this was not without controversy and fortuitousness.
LSU lost to Kentucky and then again to Arkansas in the Tigers’ regular-season finale. They defeated Ole Miss, 41-24, that year before going to the SEC title game and beating Tennessee, 21-14.
LSU then had some other conference championship games fall just right that vaulted the formerly No. 5 Tigers up to No. 2. LSU then took out No. 1 Ohio State for the BCS national championship.
Wild end to the 2024 season: SEC tiebreakers will likely come into play
The final three regular-season weekends of SEC action could go a long way toward launching some teams into the playoffs and ending the hopes of others. As many as eight SEC teams could finish with records of 10-2 or better, setting off all sorts of SEC tiebreakers to see who makes the league championship game.
In case you are curious, the SEC tiebreaker rules run six-tiers deep. In the event of a tie between teams competing for a place in the Conference championship game, the following procedures will be used in descending order until the tie is broken:
- 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
- Capped relative total scoring margin versus all Conference opponents among the tied teams
- Random draw of the tied teams
What’s Left?
Here’s a look at who each of the potential SEC title game contenders have left on their schedule:
LSU (6-3 overall, 3-2 SEC)
- Remaining SEC games: @ Florida, vs. Vanderbilt, vs. Oklahoma
Missouri (7-2, 3-2)
- Remaining SEC games: @ South Carolina, @ Mississippi State, vs. Arkansas
Alabama (7-2, 4-2)
- Remaining SEC games: @ Oklahoma, vs. Auburn
Ole Miss (8-2, 4-2)
- Remaining SEC games: @ Florida, vs. Mississippi State
Georgia (7-2, 5-2)
- Remaining SEC games: vs. Tennessee
Texas (8-1, 4-1)
- Remaining SEC games: @ Arkansas, vs. Kentucky, @ Texas A&M
Texas A&M (7-2, 5-1)
- Remaining SEC games: @ Auburn, vs. Texas
Tennessee (8-1, 5-1)
- Remaining SEC games: @ Georgia, vs. Vanderbilt
As you can see, there are plenty of exciting games left as the conference schedule comes to a close in the coming weeks. Crazy things do happen and literally anything’s on the table in this new environment of the 12-team playoffs. It CAN be done, and Ole Miss has the team to do it!
(Feature image credit: Karis Chambliss, The Rebel Walk)
David Walker
David Walker was named Louisiana’s High School Player of the Year at just 16 years old and, at 17, became college football’s first quarterback to earn Freshman of the Year honors. He remains the NCAA’s youngest-ever starting quarterback, a distinction that has stood for decades.
Transitioning from a wide-open high school offense to Emory Bellard’s renowned wishbone triple option, Walker excelled as a dual-threat quarterback. He graduated as Texas A&M’s all-time winningest quarterback and served as a two-time team captain, helping to transform a program that had endured 15 losing seasons in the previous 16 years.
After his playing career, Walker coached and taught algebra at six Texas high schools before moving into private business. In 2011, he published his memoir, “I’ll Tell You When You’re Good,” a title inspired by the coaching philosophy of Shannon Suarez, the Sulphur High and Louisiana High School Hall of Fame coach who was a significant influence on Walker’s life and career.
Walker’s compelling storytelling in his autobiography reflects the breadth of his experiences in high school and college football, and it is an undeniable fact that he saw more action than any athlete in the history of the NCAA. Since 2013, he has contributed to The Rebel Walk, sharing his insights and expertise with readers.
