MAC announces new football tiebreaking procedures

By Kevin Kelley -

The Mid-American Conference (MAC) announced on Wednesday its new football tiebreaking procedures for the 2024 MAC Championship Game. The season marks the first for the conference with a division-less format.

The 2024 MAC Championship Game will also mark the first time in conference history that the contest will feature the top two teams in the overall conference standings.

In the event of a tie between teams competing for a place in the MAC Championship Game, the league will utilize the following procedures in descending order until the tie is broken:

  • 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

For additional information on the MAC tie-breakers, the league has published a one-page document on its official website.

The 2024 MAC Championship Game is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 7 at Ford Field in Detroit, Mich. The game will be televised by ESPN at 12:00pm ET.

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Comments (6)

This format will MACximize the Conference’s best teams getting the highest shot @: the 1 of the 12 Trust 4 Club Football Playoff Spaces dangled before the 66 Dependent Conference/Independent Programs.

Actually there is a good chance this tie breaker will not send the best MAC to the playoff since it does not count out of conference wins and losses. The MAC has long odds to be the G5 rep anyway, but if the tie breaker leaves a team with a win over Notre Dame or a P4 playoff contender for a team that lost to Power 4 playoff contenders than shame on the MAC.

One loss probably removes a MAC team from the playoff anyway.

I am surprised that the out of conference record will mean nothing until the last metric before a coin flip.

If there is a tie this year N. Illinois victory over Notre Dame will not be considered?

If one team is ranked in the Comittee’s Top 25 and the other two candidates for the Conference Championship game are not ranked, that is not considered until the last tie breaker.