Zach Butler/The Daily

With the end of the college football season drawing near, things are still unclear in the Big 12 South. Texas and Texas Tech are undefeated, and OU is close behind.

Since the loss to Texas, Sooner fans have been hoping someone jumps up and takes the Longhorns down. But if Texas loses only one game, it would have to be to a South division opponent for it to make a difference to OU.

The Longhorns face only three South teams from here out: Texas Tech, Baylor and Texas A&M.

Barring a catastrophic meltdown or an injury to Colt McCoy, they will easily handle Baylor and Texas A&M, which makes this weekend’s matchup with Texas Tech perhaps the most important Big 12 game of the year.

If the Red Raiders manage to pull off a monumental upset, things could get very interesting in the Big 12. If Tech beats Texas and OU beats Tech, it could force a three-way tie at the top of the South division.

When more than one team is tied at the top of the division, the tiebreaker first goes to the team with the best overall record. In this hypothetical situation, the three teams would still be tied.

It would then come down to which team had the better division record. This is why a Texas loss to Kansas — the only other legitimate threat on UT’s schedule — makes no difference to OU. Kansas is a part of the North division.

If the Longhorns beat everyone else, they would still win in the tiebreaker. But if Tech, Texas and OU beat each other and only finish with one loss, they would still be tied.

The decision would then fall to records against the North division. Another tie.

Finally, it would come down to which team is ranked highest in the BCS. That would essentially doom Texas Tech, so it would come down to OU vs. Texas.

The Sooners’ loss to Texas would not help their standing, but the quality of their non-conference schedule might. Which is why OU fans will need to start rooting for a previous enemy: TCU.

The Horned Frogs are already up to No. 13 in the BCS, and would jump into the top 10 with a win over No. 10 Utah. The computer rankings give teams a bonus for beating a top-10 team, so OU’s victory over TCU could become huge.

If all this has just confused you, I can boil it down to four steps that need to happen for OU to jump over Texas (assuming Texas doesn’t lose twice):

1) Tech must beat Texas this weekend.

2) OU must win the rest of its games.

3) Tech must beat everyone but OU. If Tech loses twice, it would leave OU tied with Texas only. The tiebreaker would automatically go to the Longhorns, thanks to their win in Dallas.

4) TCU would need to win the rest of its games. If TCU and Tech both finish in the top 10, that would give OU two quality wins to Texas’ one (over OU).

Obviously, lots of things have to fall OU’s way, but crazier things have happened.