Rose Bowl selection rules
(Written by kencraw)
The more I read people’s comments, the more surprised I am about how little so many people know about the Rose Bowl selection process. So here goes:
- The Rose Bowl selects the winner of Pac-10 and the winner of the Big-10.
- The Pac-10 champion is determined by whoever has the highest winning percentage in their Pac-10 conference games (or said another way whoever has the most Pac-10 wins (assuming everyone plays their full Pac-10 schedule)).
- If two teams are tied for the highest winning percentage, the winner of their matchup wins the tie-breaker.
- If three or more teams are tied, if one team has beat all of the others amongst the tied teams, it wins the tie-breaker.
- If three or more teams are tied and none of them has beat all of the other tied teams, the team with the best record against the tied teams wins the tie-breaker. If two or more teams are tied for the best record, the lower teams are eliminated and tie-breakers number three and four are re-tried. (BTW, this tie-breaker only really matters if 4 or more teams are tied (assuming everyone plays their full Pac-10 schedule) so it can likely be ignored).
- If the above tie-breakers still do not break the tie, whoever lost to the highest place team in the Pac-10 is eliminated and the above tie-breakers are re-tried. (This one is best explained by an example: If Cal, USC and Oregon are tied because Oregon beats USC but losses to Washington and Cal loses to USC, whichever of Stanford (USC’s loss), Oregon State (Cal’s loss) and Washington (Oregon’s loss) finished higher in the Pac-10 will determine who is eliminated from the tie-breaker. If Stanford was that team, USC would be eliminated and Cal would go to the Rose Bowl based on the head-to-head tie-breaker over Oregon.)
- If after all of the above tie-breakers are exhausted, the team with the highest BCS ranking goes to the Rose Bowl.
I have ignored who goes to the Rose Bowl in the case that the Rose Bowl has an at-large berth due to one or both of the Big-10 and Pac-10 champion going to the BCS championship game… perhaps I’ll do that in another post if it looks like it will at all be of issue down the road.
The key things to remember off the top of your head is that it is still the Pac-10 champion who goes irrelevant of low BCS rankings (although a top-2 ranking of course changes things) and the tie-breakers for the Pac-10 representative in the Rose Bowl when there are co-champions are the traditional ones (head to head matchups first). If you don’t remember all the complicated 3-way and beyond tie-breakers, I wouldn’t worry about it, but people need to know the simple stuff.
The final note, and the reason I felt the need to write this, is that assuming no Pac-10 team goes to the BCS title game, it’s very unlikely at this point that the BCS rankings will determine who from the Pac-10 is in the Rose Bowl at this point particularly since the teams expected to be on top at the end of the season have lost to different teams down in the Pac-10 standings.
(For those who are interested, the Pac-10’s document on how the Rose Bowl representative is picked can be found here.)
October 15th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Bottom line: Win the Pac-10, go to the Rose Bowl (at least).
One guy over at both Wilner and Okanes’ blogs has been dying to know if its possible for Cal to get the Rose Bowl and Oregon to get national title game. Obviously, it’s possible (anything is possinbe this season), if SOMEHOW Cal wins the Pac-10 and still finds Oregon ranked 1 or 2 in the BCS.
The Ducks are only one place above us in the computer component of the BCS, and I gotta think that, in the end, should both teams finish with identical records, that Cal’s number would jump Oregon’s. At that point, say we’re both 11-1, it would come down to Cal’s road game at Arizona State that would boost their numbers. Pretty much every other game is the same (i.e., we both play Washington at Washington, Stanford at Stanford, $C at home, etc.) I think that extra “quality” road win could be the difference (that and the head-to-head victory, of course!).
Last year, after the Arizona loss, I remember feeling so AWFUL. Not so much this week. I’m disappointed, sure, but there is still the main goal, the one we’ve always been aiming for, of the Rose Bowl, and it’s still VERY MUCH WITHIN OUR REACH. We still control our destiny in the Pac-10, it just got a little tighter for us, that’s all.
Go Bears! Head to Rose Bowl, Part One, this weekend and take care of business. Feel the happiness of what it’s like to win in that stadium and think of it as a warm-up for New Years Day!
October 15th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Ok, next, I want to know where babies come from. I’m seeing a lot of confusion on BearInsider about this.
October 15th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
TwistNHook, babies come into this world when two Old Blues love each other very much. One night Joe Kapp knocks on their door and hands them a very special package: a bottle of tequila. After the two Old Blues drink the tequila, nature takes its course and they pass out. Nine months later they awaken to a tapping on their windows — the Stork has arrived! Assuming that they don’t kill the bird, it brings them a coupon for a free ticket to Cal’s first uninteresting nonconference home game of the year (Note: THIS IS A COUPON, NOT A TICKET.) The night after that game, if the two Old Blues love each other very much, they bring a baby into the world. And that baby’s name was Richard Nixon.
Or something like that.
October 16th, 2007 at 8:40 am
RE: Oregon and the computers. If Michigan wins out, one would think that the defeat of tOSU would be a big boost to Oregon’s computer ranking. The Ducks OOC teams (Houston, Fresno St, and Michigan) all have the potential to have relatively big seasons, thus improving Oregon’s computer ranking. The scenario of Oregon and Cal winning out, being co-Pac-10 Champs is possible. The irony would be that Cal gets the Rose Bowl bid by virtue of head-to-head while Oregon has to “settle” for the national championship.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Don’t forget that Cal can still get an at-large bid if another Pac-10 team goes to the Rose Bowl. It happened in 2002 with Wazzou (remember when they were good) going to the Rose Bowl and USC going to the Orange Bowl.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Very nice explanation about the tie breaking rules, although you might want to rewrite rule 4, since you might have a four way tie!
December 7th, 2007 at 12:09 am
can the rose bowl pick out side of the pac-10 and big ten?
December 7th, 2007 at 10:20 am
Rich, yes they can, but only if one or both of the Pac-10 or Big-10 champions is in the BCS championship game. Said another way, they’re obligated to pick the Pac-10 and Big-10 champions if they are available, but they won’t be available if they’re in the BCS championship game.
In the case that they lose one (or both), they can pick whatever BCS eligible team they want and they also get the first pick. Since you’re probably wondering about the Illinios pick, the Rose Bowl could have picked any of the following teams to replace Ohio State instead of Illinios (in order of BCS ranking):
-Georgia
-Missouri
-Kansas
-West Virginia
-Hawaii
-Arizona St. (they wouldn’t pick 2 Pac-10 teams)
-Florida
-Boston College
Seeing as how Illinios was only in front of BC in that list ranking wise, it’s clear that despite their ability to pick from the above teams, their loyalty to the Big-10 was a HUGE factor in their pick.
August 31st, 2009 at 10:41 am
[…] once. As such, whoever has lost to the best team in the conference will be the deal breaker (see my recap on how the Rose Bowl tie-breaker works). With Cal losing to ASU, I doubt that eliminates Cal, but who USC and Oregon lose to also effect […]