11/14/2021 football Edit

How Oregon State Can Win The Pac-12 North

Brenden Slaughter • BeaversEdge

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With Oregon State (6-4, 4-3 Pac-12) reaching bowl eligibility and moving into a tie for second place in the north with a 35-14 win over Stanford, BeaversEdge.com breaks down the three things that need to happen for the Beavers to win the division.

1. Oregon State Needs To Beat Arizona State & Oregon

-> First things first, Oregon State needs to take care of business against its next two opponents to even have a chance at making this happen. It's no easy task as the Beavers have a home matchup with Arizona State (7-3, 5-2) and a road matchup with No. 3 Oregon (9-1, 6-1), but stranger things have certainly happened.

ASU has a tendency to be iffy on the road in the PNW late in the season, and all bets are off in the rivalry game... The Beavers need more help than just winning their last two to win the north, but taking care of their own business is where it starts.

2. Oregon Needs To Lose To Utah & OSU

-> With two regular-season conference games remaining, Oregon needs to lose to No. 24 Utah next weekend, and OSU the following weekend in order for this scenario to have any viability.

Simply put, if the Ducks handle the Utes in Salt Lake this next weekend, it doesn't matter what happens the following week as UO will have already clinched the north.

Since Utah's loss to Oregon State several weeks ago, they've proceeded to win three straight contests, beating UCLA, Stanford, & Arizona to climb into the national rankings.

If the Utes manage to pull the upset, things become a lot more interesting...

3. Washington State Needs To Lose 1-of-2 vs Arizona & Washington

-> Last but certainly not least, the Beavers will need a little help from Washington State's opponents to give this scenario true viability. In addition to everything else happening in points one and two, Washington State needs to drop one of their two contests against Arizona & Washington to give them a fourth conference loss.

If the Cougars were to win out, OSU were to win out, and Oregon were to lose out, that would create a three-way tie atop the north division with all three teams sitting at 6-3 in Pac-12 play. WSU would have the tiebreak over OSU, OSU would have the tiebreak over UO, and UO would have the tiebreak over WSU.

That creates a messy scenario where the conference would follow this procedure to determine who wins the north:

Multiple-team ties:

1. Head-to-head results (best record in games between tied teams)

2. Record in intra-divisional games

3. Record against the next highest placed team in the division (based on the record in all conference games), proceeding through the division

4. Record in common conference games

5. Highest ranking in SportSource Analytics poll following the final weekend of regular season games.

At this point, it's hard to speculate how this scenario would play out as there's a lot to still be determined as far as the intra-division record and so on.

With all that being said, if WSU loses one of its final two contests against UA & UW, a three-way tiebreaking scenario wouldn't be needed.

How Oregon State Can Win The Pac-12 North

Pac-12 Standings