Western Group


Utah and Iowa State are the pre-season favorites, with Kansas State, Boise State, and BYU a chance to contend. Kansas is an overwhelming favorite to relegate, with Colorado likely to join them.

Week 9


When teams have monotonic strength A > B > C > ..., and there are no upsets, then the standings will follow the same monotonic order, 8 > 7 > 6 > ...

This can still occur when there are one or more small upsets. If C upsets B, they will simply swap places in the standing. Since C beat B we can't even be sure that C isn't better than B (a conclusion that B is the stronger team would have to look at how convincing other scores were - did B play A closer, or defeat D more convincingly.

Only when there is more disruption, in this case WSU beat K-State, K-State beat Boise State, and Boise State beat WSU, forming a cycle do we get standings ties. Though WSU was perceived to be weaker than BYU, its win in the battle of the Cougars placed it clearly higher in the standings.

For playoff purposes we don't have to resolve the third-place tie. Because there was a cycle, Boise State, Kansas State, and Washington State were 1-1 in head-to-head competition, we have to compare their performance against the other teams. Obviously, they are tied at 4-2 against common opponents.

All three lost to #1 Utah and #2 Iowa State, while all three defeated #6 BYU, #7 San Diego State, #8 Colorado, and #9 Kansas.

The tie had to broken by point difference in head-to-head games.

WSU defeated K-State by +9.
K-State defeated Boise State by +10,
and Boise State defeated WSU by +12.

Boise State +12-10 = +2 is 3rd.
K-State +10-9 = +1 is 4th.
WSU +9 - 12 = -3 is 5th.

Depending on how the rules were written, WSU could have been 4th. Once Boise State was determined to be 3rd, the ranking of K-State and WSU could have reverted head-to-head. But in this case, the rule was explicit that once you go to point difference, all tied teams are ranked.

An interesting feature of this result was that Boise State and Washington State played in Week 9. Boise State would know that they needed to win by at least +12 to take third place. This could have affected their strategy and tactics beyond those needed to win the game (e.g. why did they go for 2 after the TD).