Bring On The Cats

Now that each team is down to two or three games remaining, it's a little more manageable to look at what remains and figure out how things may play out.  Nothing about this is guaranteed to be right, and if you see something that I've missed, make a comment explaining the mistake.  I'm going to break this down by the record it will take to win the North, then by what each team must have happen to win it at that record.  First, the current standings:

K-State: 4-2 (Missouri, @Nebraska)

Nebraska: 3-2 (@KU, K-State, @Colorado)

Colorado: 2-3 (@Iowa State, @Oklahoma State, Nebraska)

Iowa State: 2-4 (Colorado, @Missouri)

KU: 1-4 (Nebraska, @Texas, Missouri)

Missouri: 1-4 (@K-State, Iowa State, KU)

Winning Record: 6-2 (Teams still in the running: K-State, Nebraska)

K-State: Go 2-0

If K-State gets to 6-2, then it wins the division.  By winning both remaining games to get to 6-2, by necessity Nebraska must lose a game and thus cannot get to 6-2.

Nebraska: Go 3-0

If Nebraska goes 3-0, then the same as above is true.  It will win the division because K-State cannot also get to 6-2.

Every other school already has at least three losses.

Winning Record: 5-3 (Teams still in the running: K-State, Nebraska, Colorado)

K-State: Go 1-1

If K-State goes 1-1 and that win is over Nebraska, it wins the division.  Even if CU went 3-0 to close the season, K-State would win the three-way tiebreaker by virtue of its wins over NU and CU.

If K-State goes 1-1 and that win is over Missouri, then it needs Nebraska to lose its road games to KU and CU -- or -- it would need CU to win out and make it a three-way tie.  If it's a three-way tie in that scenario, then K-State wins because it would be 4-1 against the rest of the division, while NU and CU would be 3-2.

Nebraska: Go 2-1

If Nebraska goes 2-1 and those two wins are over K-State and CU, then the Huskers win the division.

If NU's two wins are over KU and K-State, then it needs CU to lose one of its three remaining games.

In this scenario, Nebraska must beat K-State, because if it doesn't, the Wildcats win the division.

Colorado: Go 3-0*

Colorado can get to 5-3 by winning out, but it would need K-State to go 0-2 because K-State has the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Winning record: 4-4 (All teams can still get to 4-4)

While each team can still get to 4-4, it's impossible to have a six-way tie at that record because some of the four-loss teams play each other.  Also, Nebraska still has to win one more game to assure itself a 4-4 record, while Colorado has to win two to reach that plateau.  I'm going to omit an extended discussion of this scenario, because it seems pretty unlikely at this point that 4-4 will be the best record in the division, and it would take forever to go through every possible scenario.