The SEC announced on Wednesday its new football tiebreaking procedures for the 2024 SEC Championship Game. The season will mark the first for the conference with 16 teams following the addition of Oklahoma and Texas.
The tiebreaking procedures were set due to the SEC returning to a division-less format for the first time since the 1991 season.
In the event of a tie between teams competing for a place in the SEC Championship Game, the league will utilize the following procedures in descending order until the tie is broken:
- Head-to-head competition among the tied teams
- Record versus all common Conference opponents among the tied teams
- Record against highest (best) placed common Conference opponent in the Conference standings, and proceeding through the Conference standings among the tied teams
- Cumulative Conference winning percentage of all Conference opponents among the tied teams
- Capped relative total scoring margin versus all Conference opponents among the tied teams
- Random draw of the tied teams
Below are additional details, including seeding for the SEC Championship Game:
If the regular season standings determine a clear Conference champion and two or more teams are tied for second place, the Conference champion will be the home team in the Championship Game and the tiebreaking procedures will be used to determine its opponent.
If a tiebreaker step produces standings with two teams tied for first place in the Conference, both will qualify for the championship game. To decide the seeding of the two teams, both will progress through the two-team tiebreaker procedures until the tie is broken, which will determine home/away designation for the SEC Championship Game.
If you want to read the entire tie-breaking manual, the SEC has published a 22-page document on its official website.
The 2024 SEC Championship Game is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 7 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. The game will be televised by ABC at 4:00pm ET.