Mountain West Nixing Divisions For 2020
No Mountain, West Divisions this year
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Title game could look different.
The Mountain West going through some overhaul changes when it comes to the 2020 football season. The league is playing eight games this fall and the majority of the teams will be playing only Mountain West vs. Mountain West.
The expectations are Air Force who is playing eight total games but only six Mountain West games as they are playing for the Commander-in-Cheif trophy and play Navy and Army. Boise State has seven league games plus BYU, and San Diego State only has seven Mountain West games scheduled and one is a TBA but that seems to be BYU.
With an uneven number of games, the conference announced that there will be no divisions this year, so the conference title game will be the top two teams overall. The host will be the school with the best winning percentage in Mountain West games.
Also, with uneven games, the conference has announced tiebreakers for this year which are different from prior seasons. Plus, there is a formula for a baseline number of games to be played to be eligible for the championship game, and right now the baseline is six conference games if every team plays its full schedule.
One key note from the guidelines is that a 6-0 team is better than a 7-1 team because the 6-0 has a better winning percentage. If the minimum number of games played becomes five, a 6-0 and 5-0 team is better than a 7-1 team because both have a better winning percentage.
This baseline of games really hurts Air Force who currently has just six conference games, so if one of their Mountain West game gets canceled and they happen to go 5-0 but it takes six games to be eligible they would not be able to play in the championship game even if they had the best record.
San Diego State and Boise State at seven games have a little leeway but not much if any of their games do not get played.
A two-way tie in percentage first goes to head-to-head but if they didn’t play each other then it goes to winning percentage against common opponents. If still tied then it goes to the College Football Playoff rankings or a composite of computer rankings if not in the top 25.
Three-way tie goes round-robin vs. the teams assuming they played. If they didn’t play they are then still tied unless one of the teams beat the others. Then it goes to the head-to-head tie-breaking scenarios.
