How Oregon's win over USC affects College Football Playoff, Big Ten Championship landscapes
The Ducks moved one step closer to punching their ticket to the CFP, but still need some help to reach the Big Ten title game
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3 min read
In what amounted to a College Football Playoff elimination game between two top-15 titans in the Big Ten, No. 7 Oregon kept its conference championship and national title hopes alive Saturday with a spirited 42-27 win over No. 15 USC.
The Ducks (9-2) need a win at Washington and a Michigan victory over Ohio State next week to reach the Big Ten Championship Game for the second straight season as the league's reigning champion.
The loss for the Trojans (8-3) eliminates the Trojans team from various league title scenarios and now, the race will be decided during rivalry weekend with unbeatens Ohio State and Indiana leading the way ahead of Oregon and Michigan, a 45-20 winner at Maryland.
Oregon never trailed following Malik Benson's 85-yard punt return midway through the second quarter and put it away with Noah Whittington's touchdown run with 5:30 to play after USC had cut a two-score deficit to eight points on Jayden Maiva's to Lake McRee in the final frame.
Before getting to what Oregon's victory means in the overall playoff picture, here's a glance at how updated Big Ten Championship scenarios coming out of Week 12:
Big Ten tiebreakers, explained
- The tied teams will be compared based on head-to-head matchups during the regular season.
- The tied teams will be compared based on record against all common conference opponents.
- The tied teams will be compared based on record against common opponents with the best conference record and proceeding through the common conference opponents based on their order of finish within the conference standings. The tied teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents.
- The representative will be chosen based on the highest ranking by SportSource Analytics (team Rating Score metric) following the regular season.
- The representative will be chosen by random draw among the tied teams conducted by the commissioner or designee.
Big Ten Championship scenarios after Oregon's win
- If Oregon beats Washington next weekend and Michigan beats Ohio State, the Ducks are in the title game.
- If Michigan beats Ohio State and Washington beats Oregon, the Wolverines are in the title game.
- If Ohio State beats Michigan, the Buckeyes are in the title game.
- If Indiana beats Purdue, the Hoosiers are in the title game.
Michigan has won four straight over the Buckeyes, but an upset of top-ranked Ohio State next week would be the most improbable victory in the current stretch of success.
For the Ducks to secure an opening-round home game, they're going to need to beat Washington on the road during rivalry weekend. A loss for Oregon and a 10-2 finish would put them team in a logjam with several other at-large, 10-win teams and would risk the Ducks falling behind two-loss Oklahoma and Notre Dame given the hot streak's each has shown in the final month.
Oklahoma took out No. 22 Missouri on Saturday for its third straight quality victory, while the Fighting Irish walloped Syracuse, 70-7, and have Stanford left.
In CBS Sports' latest playoff bracket projection, Oregon was slotted as the 8-seed hosting No. 9 Oklahoma in December. However, should Oregon, Oklahoma and Notre Dame win out, we're expecting the Ducks to move to No. 6 in the final bracket replacing Ole Miss, which could slide should Lane Kiffin bolt to LSU.
Committee chair Hunter Yurachek explained after the third playoff rankings why the Ducks were one spot ahead of the Sooners.
"Oregon, while their strength of schedule metric may not be as strong as an Oklahoma, we felt like they are a very strong team on both sides of the ball," Yurachek said. "Offensively and defensively, they rank in the top 10 of most of the statistical categories that we use, in comparison to other teams."
Yurachek noted Oregon's recent ranked win at Iowa and said the committee still views the victory at Penn State in September as a quality win.
"I know Penn State is not the same Penn State we expected them to be this year," Yurachek said. "Still, it's a very challenging place to play as evidenced by Indiana having to have a last-second touchdown to win there a couple weeks ago. So there was significant discussion about that, but Oregon at 9-1 stayed one spot ahead of Oklahoma."
