October 31, 2007 · 7:03 AM

Just win, baby.

If you’re looking for a handy, dandy chart of the contending schools’ chances to emerge from the SEC East and go to the SECCG, The State has one here, although it should be noted that Vanderbilt isn’t included, and the Commodores haven’t been mathematically eliminated from the race.

What’s obvious is that Georgia has no margin for error at all. There isn’t a single [ed. note – three or four team] tiebreaker scenario that resolves itself in the Dawgs’ favor.

3 Comments

Filed under Georgia Football, SEC Football

3 responses to “Just win, baby.”

  1. ActuaryDawg
    November 1, 2007 at 9:54 AM

    Actually there are bunch of 2 way tie-breaker situations in which Georgia wins, for example:

    UF beats Vandy, UF beats S. Carolina, Auburn beats Georgia, Arkansas beats Tennessee, Georgia beats Kentucky, Tennessee beats Vanderbilt, Kentucky beats Tennessee.

    This leaves teams with the following number of SEC losses:

    Florida 3
    Georgia 3
    Kentucky 4
    S. Carolina 4
    Tennessee 4
    Vanderbilt 6

    Georgia wins the tie breaker by virtue of their win over Florida.

    I set up a large spreadsheet that contains every possible combination of outcomes for the remaining SEC East games. Out of 512 combinations (2 to ninth power), Georgia is the SEC East champion in 190 scenarios. Tennessee is next with 151 scenarios. Even though Tennessee is in the driver’s seat being up in the loss column, since they have three SEC games left, there are more ways left for them to lose. Florida wins under 60 different scenarios. South Carolina wins under 43 scenarios. Vanderbilt and Kentucky each have 34 scenarios under which they will make it to the SECCG.

    There are no scenarios in which three or more teams finish tied and Georgia wins the tiebreakers. There are 44 scenarios in which two teams finish tied, and Georgia wins the SEC East. The craziest situation would be a six way tie. There are three possible six way tie scenarios. Vanderbilt wins two of them. Florida wins the third.

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  2. ActuaryDawg
    November 1, 2007 at 9:58 AM

    Sorry. In the above example, I left out Kentucky beating Vanderbilt. But Vanderbilt beating Kentucky results in a similar two way tie between Georgia and Florida.

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  3. Senator Blutarsky
    November 1, 2007 at 10:06 AM

    My bad – I should have been more precise with my language. There’s no three or four team tiebraker listed in the article that Georgia wins.

    Thanks for pointing that out.

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