New MAC Tiebreaker Rules Announced
The Mid-American Conference finally announced its new tiebreaking procedures that it’ll start following this season to decide which two teams will make it to the MAC Championship game at the end of the season. The new procedure was necessary as the old tiebreaking rules were made for when the conference had East and West division splits.
At the end of last season in the run-up to the championship game, the MAC announced that it would end the East/West break starting this season, and will instead let the conference’s top two teams make it to the title game regardless of location.
The new tiebreaking procedures, per the MAC’s release Wednesday:
TWO TEAMS TIED
Head-to-head competition between the two tied teams.
Win percentage versus all common opponents.
Win percentage versus common opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win percentage, with ties broken) and proceeding through other common opponents based upon their order of finish.
Combined conference win percentage of conference opponents.
The tied team with the higher ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular season games.
The representative shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the Commissioner or Commissioner’s designee.
THREE OR MORE TIED TEAMS
Combined head-to-head win percentage among the tied teams if all tied teams are common opponents.
If all the tied teams are not common opponents, the tied team that defeated each of the other tied teams advances.
Win percentage versus all common opponents.
Win percentage versus common opponents based upon their order of finish (overall conference win percentage, with ties broken) and proceeding through other common opponents based upon their order of finish.
Combined conference win percentage of conference opponents.
The tied team with the higher ranking by the Team Rating Score metric provided by SportSource Analytics following the conclusion of regular season games.
The representative shall be chosen by a draw as administered by the Commissioner or Commissioner’s designee.
Conference play begins this weekend with two MAC games: Central Michigan hosts Ball State and #23 Northern Illinois hosts Buffalo.