College Football Conference Tiebreaker Rules
Conference championship tiebreakers look similar until the details decide who advances.
2026 season · Last reviewed
Conference Guides
SEC
How the SEC breaks ties for its title game: head-to-head, multi-team elimination and restarts, opponent winning percentage, and relative scoring margin.
Big Ten
How the Big Ten breaks ties for its title game: the first-place and second-place branches, multi-team reductions, and what the 2026 policy leaves open.
Big 12
How the Big 12 breaks ties for its championship game: head-to-head, common opponents, schedule strength, eligible wins, and the policy behind each step.
ACC
How the ACC breaks ties for its 2026 championship game: head-to-head, the alternate-schedule rule, multi-team restarts, and the policy behind each step.
Pac-12
How the rebuilt Pac-12 breaks ties in 2026: separate two-team and multi-team orders, CFP and SportSource criteria, and the non-standings flex game.
More conferences coming soon
How Conference Tiebreakers Work
Start with the teams tied in the conference standings. The conference checks each rule in order until it can choose a championship participant or determine seeding.
- A two-team tie can follow a different sequence than a tie involving three or more teams.
- The rules are applied from top to bottom. Once a step breaks the tie, the later steps are not used.
- In a multi-team tie, a conference may advance or remove one team and then restart the process for the teams still tied.
- If the remaining step requires an outside ranking, coin toss, or conference-administered draw, CFB APP shows the result as undecided until that official input is available.