SEC tiebreakers: Alabama vs. Texas-Texas A&M wins is the new most likely title game scenario

For anyone who loves mayhem, the potential eight-team battle for first place in the SEC is sadly over. However, the potential six-team tie is still alive after Saturday’s action.

But clarity is nearing who will play in the SEC championship game: If no more upsets occur, Alabama will likely play the winner of Texas at Texas A&M in the regular-season finale.

Of course, more disturbances can occur.

Here is the updated standings at the top of the league. All three-loss teams are officially out of championship game consideration because Georgia and one of Texas and Texas A&M are guaranteed to finish with two (or fewer) losses. That includes LSU and Missouri, who each suffered their third conference losses on Saturday.

There is one clean, but not very likely, way that first and second place could be decided: Texas and Texas A&M both win next week, and Tennessee, Ole Miss and Alabama all lose at least one more game. That would let Georgia play the winner of Texas at Texas A&M.

Otherwise, this will come down to the newly installed SEC tiebreakers, which are all based on conference play and are also heavily contingent on teams playing each other — which they mostly don’t have, thanks to a 16-team league where each the team plays a schedule of eight games.

GO DEEPER

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The first tiebreaker is head-to-head, whether it’s just two teams or three-plus teams. The second is record vs. common opponents. The third is record against the top team in the standings and work your way down, but this is conditional on the teams involved in the first three tiebreakers having played against the same teams. Georgia has played all the other contenders except Texas A&M, going 2-2, but Alabama has only played Georgia and Tennessee, Texas will have only played Georgia and Texas A&M, and so on. There are few if any scenarios where everyone involved in a tiebreaker will have played against each other.

In short, it is unlikely that any of the top three tiebreakers will decide it.

Therefore, the most likely solution would be the fourth tiebreaker: The overall record of the team’s conference opponents, essentially strength of schedule. Right now, here are the total opponents’ records for the six contenders, including future opponents. (But does not assume results of games yet to be played.)

The records will change, but probably not too drastically with only 12 conference games remaining. Again, the standings above already include the records of each team’s future conference opponents, just not any results. That’s why Alabama is in the best position right now — unless it loses at Oklahoma next week or against Auburn. One loss and it’s out. The same goes for Ole Miss and Tennessee.

The picture became a little clearer on Saturday. But it’s still murky enough to be interesting.

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(Photo by Alabama’s Ryan Williams: Brandon Sumrall/Getty Images)