Oregon clinches Big Ten Championship bid after conference reevaluation

It took a few days, but Oregon has officially clinched a spot in the Big Ten championship game, effectively securing a College Football Playoff bid.

The Big Ten confirmed on Tuesday — three days after the Ducks’ 16-13 win over Wisconsin — that Oregon would indeed make the conference title game in all 10 possible outcomes, based on the conference’s extensive tiebreaker rules.

And, as it turns out, the Big Ten’s math was wrong when it told The Oregonian on Monday that the Ducks needed Ohio State to lose vs. Indiana and Penn State to lose vs. Minnesota to clinch a conference championship berth. However, the conference’s announcement noted that Oregon will stay as the conference’s No. 1 or 2 seed in every outcome, based on tiebreakers.

‘Following a comprehensive evaluation of all possible scenarios over the final two weeks of regular season play across the conference’s 18 teams, there are no conditions whereby the Ducks do not finish No. 1 or No. 2. A list of those scenarios can be found here,’ the Big Ten’s announcement read.

It seems as if conferences are also re-learning championship game tiebreaker scenarios after the latest batch of league realignment.

Conference tiebreakers are going to take some getting used to for some of college football’s top leagues, as, for example, the expanded Big Ten and SEC are seeing numerous teams in conference championship contention with only two weeks left in the regular season.

The SEC still has six teams vying for a spot in the conference title game, whereas the Big Ten has Oregon and Indiana — who are both undefeated in conference play — and Ohio State and Penn State, who both have one conference loss, respectively.

The Big Ten and SEC effectively ended divisions for the 2024 season after the Big Ten added Oregon, Washington, UCLA and USC. The SEC added Oklahoma and Texas.

That makes for some potentially complicated tiebreaker scenarios, as Oregon and the Big Ten have discovered firsthand.

(This story was updated to add a photo.)