The Big Ten releases the football tiebreakers for the 18-team conference

The Big Ten announced its new tiebreakers for the league’s historic season on Monday, which will include 18 teams and pit the top two in the overall conference standings against each other in the league championship game.

The Big Ten no longer uses the division and has since added former Pac-12 teams USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon to the conference. If two teams are tied in the Big Ten standings (conference games only), the following steps will be taken until the participants are decided:

1. Tie teams will be compared based on head-to-head matchups during the regular season.

2. Teams tied by record against all general conference opponents will be compared

3. Tied teams will be compared to the best conference record based on record against common opponents and advance through common conference opponents in order of their finish in the conference standings.

4. Teams tied based on best cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents will be compared

5. Representatives will be selected based on the highest ranking by SportSource Analytics (team rating score metric) after the regular season.

6. The representative shall be selected by random draw among tied parties conducted by the Commissioner or designee

The 2024 DISCOVER Big Ten Championship Game will be held Saturday, Dec. 7, at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis and will be televised for the first time on CBS. The winner will earn a guaranteed spot in the College Football Playoff, which features the five highest-ranked conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams.

According to Allstate Playoff Predictions , three Big Ten schools have at least a 1-in-3 chance of reaching the playoff: Oregon (76%), Ohio State (68%) and Penn State (60%).