MAC football tiebreakers: Western Michigan, Toledo, Miami, Ohio, Central Michigan all can make conference title game

Billy Heyen

•
MAC football tiebreakers: Western Michigan, Toledo, Miami, Ohio, Central Michigan all can make conference title game image

The Mid American Conference football title race enters the final week of the regular season with everything still to be decided.

Western Michigan, Toledo, Miami (OH), Ohio and Central Michigan all still have a chance to reach the conference championship game.

The race begins on Tuesday night, when WMU (6-1 MAC) plays at EMU at 7:30 p.m. ET.

Ohio (5-2) plays at Buffalo on Friday at 12 noon.

Miami (5-2) is home on Saturday against Ball State at 12 noon.

Toledo (5-2) is on the road at Central Michigan (5-2) on Saturday, also at 12 noon.

The trip to the MAC title game in Detroit will come down to a lot of moving parts.

MORE: Kiyan Anthony makes highlights for Syracuse with dad sitting courtside

MAC football tiebreakers

If Western Michigan wins Tuesday night, they'd make part of this easy. They'd be the only MAC team at 7-1, which would send them to the league title game, no questions asked.

Toledo, Ohio and Miami are all favored to win their games, too. It's if the chalk holds like that where things get weird, because all three of those teams would be 6-2.

The MAC's tiebreaker rules for when more than two teams are tied look like this, via The Toledo Blade:

  1. Combined head-to-head win percentage among the tied teams if all tied teams are common opponents.
  2. If all the tied teams are not common opponents, the tied team that defeated each of the other tied teams advances.
  3. Win percentage versus all common opponents.

For Toledo, Ohio and Miami, the first two tiebreakers don't apply.

Miami would win that tiebreaker and advance to the championship game.

"UT, Ohio, and Miami have three common opponents: Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, and Ball State," writes the Blade's David Briggs. "Miami beat Western Michigan, Northern, and Ball State; Toledo lost to Western while Ohio fell to the Broncos and Ball State. The RedHawks would play Western for the MAC title."

Ironically, Toledo beat both Miami and Ohio this season. They would win a two-team tie with either.

But once it's a three-team tie, that goes out the window and follows the rules above.

A WMU loss would throw this into chaos, and Briggs hadn't yet figured out all the math on a four-team tie. That can be revisited if EMU pulls an upset Tuesday night.

For now, WMU's task is clear: Win and in.

Toledo gets in with a win on the weekend and a loss by either Ohio or Miami.

If Toledo loses and Ohio and Miami win, the Bobcats would get in.

Now let's play some football.

More news:

Staff Writer