The goal is to seed the two teams with the best conference winning percentage. There are no divisions and not everyone plays everyone, so ties are settled by the steps below. The procedure is the same for two teams and for three or more; what differs is how head-to-head works and what happens after a team is seeded.
The seven steps
Head-to-head. Two teams: the winner of their game. Three or more: winning percentage in games among the tied teams.
Common opponents. Winning percentage against conference opponents that every tied team played.
Walk the standings. Record against the highest-placed common opponent, then the next, and so on. A group of tied teams in the standings counts as one opponent, using records before that group's own tiebreak.
Strength of conference schedule. Combined conference winning percentage of each team's conference opponents.
Total wins in the 12-game regular season. Only one win over an FCS team counts, and games exempt from the NCAA's game limit are left out.
SportSource Analytics Team Rating Score after the last regular-season weekend.
Coin toss.
Corner cases
Two teams tie for first: both play in the title game. The winner of their game is the #1 seed. If they did not play, the two-team steps decide #1.
Clear #1, tie for second: the tied teams run the steps and the winner is the #2 seed.
Three or more tie for first: run the steps until one team has an advantage. That team is #1. Everyone left starts over at step a, using the two-team steps once only two remain, to find #2.
Head-to-head when not all tied teams played each other: only a team that beat every other tied team is pulled out and seeded. Otherwise skip to step b. Losing to everyone does not knock a team out.
Title game: not counted in conference records or in the 12-game win total.
Only two teams get ranked: the tiebreakers pick the two title-game teams and stop there. In the standings on this page, "T3" means teams still tied at that spot.
How this site reads the gray areas
In a tie of three or more, a team alone at the top of a step is seeded. If the step leaves several level at the top, the teams below them drop out and the rest start over at step a, as the Big 12 applied it in 2024 (Colorado dropped out of the four-way tie before BYU and Iowa State went to strength of schedule).
Step b leaves the tied teams themselves out of the common-opponent set.
Step c only counts common opponents: within a group of teams tied in the standings, only the members every tied team played. A group with no common members is skipped.
Step f uses ESPN's current FPI because the SportSource rating is not public. This step almost never decides anything.
Run against final results, the engine reproduces the Big 12's own rulings: 2024 (four-way tie at 7-2: ASU #1 on common opponents, Colorado drops out, Iowa State #2 over BYU on strength of schedule, .444 to .383) and 2025 (Texas Tech, then BYU).