What happens if there is a three-way tie in the Big Ten East?

This weekend there is a massive showdown in State College, Pennsylvania, as 3rd-ranked Michigan (9-0, 6-0) will take on 10th-ranked Penn State (8-1, 5-1) at 12 PM ET in Beaver Stadium.

Heading into the game, the Nittany Lions sit a game behind both the Wolverines and Ohio State (9-0, 6-0) in the Big Ten East standings. A loss all but knocks Penn State out of the division race, and certainly the College Football Playoff picture. A win would put PSU smack in the middle of both.

Should James Franklin’s team emerge victorious this weekend, they would immediately become fans of Michigan the rest of the season.

With Jim Harbaugh’s squad taking on Maryland on November 18, its very likely UM goes into ”The Game” against Ohio State on November 25 with just the one loss to PSU (again, should that occur). The Wolverines would be 10-1 overall and 7-1 in Big Ten play.

Ohio State has consecutive home games against Michigan State and Minnesota the next two weeks, two contests in which they’ll be heavy favorites. Should those games go as planned, the Buckeyes would be 11-0 (8-0) entering ”The Game”.

With Penn State hypothetically sitting at 11-1 (8-1) should they beat Rutgers and Michigan State to end the season, as expected, they would need a Wolverines’ win over OSU, the lone team that would have beaten them in this scenario, to force a three-way tie atop the Big Ten East division.

Per the Big Ten rules on tiebreakers for football, there is an eight step process to determine who would advance to the conference title game against the West Division winner on December 2.

Given that Ohio State would have beaten Penn State, Penn State would have beaten Michigan, and Michigan would have beaten Ohio State in this situation, steps 1-4 would still result in a tie, while step 5 is likely the one that would break it.

Step 5 says, ”The records of the three (or more) teams will be compared based on the best cumulative conference winning percentage of non-divisional opponents.” That means that each of three schools’ west division opponents’ conference play records would be added up and the trio with the best record would send the school that played them to Indianapolis.

The West Division opponents for Penn State this year are Illinois, Northwestern, and Iowa. Michigan played Nebraska, Purdue, and Minnesota. Ohio State’s opponents are Purdue, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Entering week 11, Penn State actually has the leg up right now, with their opponents having a combined 8 conference wins. Both of Michigan’s and Ohio State’s opponents have 7 conference wins. That of course can, and will likely change over the next three weeks, though.

Penn State fans should be rooting hard for the Illini, Wildcats, and Hawkeyes, none of which UM or OSU played. The best win output those three programs can put together is 14. That would require Iowa beating Rutgers and Nebraska, Illinois beating Indiana, and Northwestern beating Wisconsin and Purdue, outside of the games the three teams play eachother.

Michigan fans need to be rooting for Nebraska, as Ohio State has common opponents in the Boilermakers and Golden Gophers. The best win output UM’s three opponents can put together is 14 if you take away the games they play each other, as well as Minnesota’s game against Ohio State.

As for Ohio State fans, they need to pull for Wisconsin big time. The best win output for the Badgers, Purdue, and Minnesota that is possible outside the games they play each other or OSU is 14. There are big opportunities within those 6 potential wins, though, as UW plays Northwestern (PSU opponent) and Nebraska (UM opponent) and Purdue plays Northwestern.

All of this becomes moot, though should the Wolverines beat Penn State this weekend and/or Ohio State takes care of business in Ann Arbor, assuming none of the three teams get upset otherwise. It will certainly be interesting to see what happens the rest of the way—there’s only three regular season games left, but with what is at stake, that is a lot of football remaining.