Big 12 Coaches Vote to Keep Tiebreaker

The cries near the end of the Big 12 football season were for change.

The system for deciding the divisional champion in the event of a multiple-team tie seemed unjust when Oklahoma received the South Division's spot in the Big 12 title game over Texas and Texas Tech, after all three finished with identical 7-1 league records last season. During the season, UT had beaten OU, but lost to Texas Tech. The Red Raiders claimed a dramatic win over the Longhorns, but got crushed by the Sooners.

The tiebreaking scenarios to determine the South champion were mind-boggling. After exhausting the first four tiebreakers, the decision came down to BCS standings. The Sooners edged UT by 13 thousandths of a point for the fifth tiebreaking scenario last December.

Texas coach Mack Brown screamed foul, Texas Tech coach Mike Leach kind of scratched his head, while OU coach Bob Stoops smiled all the way to the BCS title game.

Most coaches in the Big 12 agreed the league needed a better system for determining divisional champions aside from the flawed system known as the BCS. One proposal that seemed to have legs was using the BCS standings to eliminate the third team while allowing head-to-head competition to decide between the two remaining teams in the event of another three-way tie.

But when the Big 12 coaches got together Thursday in Phoenix, they voted (by a majority of at least seven) to keep the same system in place. Go figure.

"The tiebreaker system we had was felt, by the majority of coaches, to be appropriate to what we want to accomplish," said Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe. "There's risks in either one. We had one risk last year."

But now it will ultimately be left up to the Big 12 athletic directors to accept or reject the coaches' vote when they get together later this month. Odds are the ADs will vote along the wishes of their football coaches, which means no change, no progress.

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At the same time it's hard to argue with the results when the objective is to land a team in the BCS title game. OU defeated Missouri in the Big 12 championship game and landed in the BCS title game against Florida. UT's consolation prize was a date in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State.

The Longhorns didn't get a chance to play for the national championship but the league occupied spots in two mega-bucks BCS bowl games.

"The motive is to give the best chance for a team to play in the national championship," Beebe said. "Obviously, we had a scenario (in 2008), hopefully we'll never have that again."

Brown, the most outspoken against the current Big 12 tiebreaker rule, was not in attendance at Thursday's meeting. He was back in Austin with his wife, who is recovering from surgery.