Big 12 Conference Abolishes Football Co-Champions, Adopts Rules to Determine Champion

This afternoon during the Big 12 meetings, the Big 12 athletic directors approved new tiebreaker rules to determine a conference champion in football. Max Olson of ESPN tweeted this image of the tiebreakers:

Here's the official verdict from the Big 12 on tiebreakers, approved today pic.twitter.com/jlBGfAefdM

— Max Olson (@max_olson) May 6, 2015

This isn't entirely surprising news, given The Great "One True Champion" Debacle of 2014 played out. Gone are the toothless tiebreaker rules that only applied to the selection of a team to be the Big 12's representative in the Sugar Bowl. Instead, we now have an unequivocal statement right the top:

To be used to determine the Conference champion and, if needed, the Conference's Sugar Bowl representative in the event the champion is selected for a CFP semifinal

Finally, we have One True Champion. If two teams are tied, the winner of the head to head matchup prevails. The change comes as small comfort to your Baylor Bears of 2014 and the 2012 Kansas State Wildcats, both of whom were crowned "co-champions" on account of identical conference records despite having beaten the other team crowned co-champ. In the event that more than two teams are tied, a four-step process will be applied to determine the conference champion. If that doesn't work, it sounds like they'll cast lots at Big 12 HQ in Irving.

Bowlsby apparently confirmed one more thing for us today:

Bowlsby confirmed Big 12 will no longer award trophies to both teams when there's a tie at No. 1.

— Max Olson (@max_olson) May 6, 2015

And yes, Big 12 will continue to use "One True Champion" slogan now that it's actually true.

— Max Olson (@max_olson) May 6, 2015