If you’re looking for myriad clinchings, you’re going to have to wait until the final full weekend of the 2016 season to fully wrap things up divisionally.
There are a total of eight Power Five divisions, and one (SEC West) has already been claimed. Entering Week 12, four of the remaining seven cannot be decided this weekend -- ACC Coastal, Pac-12 South and both divisions in the Big Ten. And the Big 12, with no divisions, won’t be clinched until Week 13 at the earliest.
That leaves the ACC Atlantic, Pac-12 North and SEC East as the Power Five divisions that have the potential to be resolved this weekend. Of those two, only one is guaranteed to be cleared up by the end of business Saturday -- the Atlantic.
Clemson, 6-1 in the conference and a half-game behind 7-1 Louisville, travels to Winston-Salem to take on Wake Forest Saturday evening in its league finale. And the scenario is a rather simple one: if Clemson beats Wake, they win the division based on the head-to-head tiebreaker over the U of L. If they lose, Louisville wins and heads to its first-ever ACC championship game.
The SEC East could be painless as well. Florida currently sits at 5-2 in the division and Tennessee at 3-3; if UF handles LSU in Baton Rouge this afternoon, the Gators will earn the honor of getting taken to the woodshed by Alabama in the SEC championship game. If they lose? UT could claim the East with wins over Missouri and Vanderbilt in Nashville based on their advantage in the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The Tigers could still win the East even with a loss to the West’s Tigers, provided the Vols lose at least one of their last two games.
In the Pac-12 North, Washington State sits in the driver’s seat at 7-0 while in-state rival Washington rides shotgun at 6-1. If Wazzu beats South leader Colorado in Boulder and UW loses to Arizona State, the Cougars will win their first-ever division title. If the division is not clinched this weekend? The winner of the Week 13 Apple Cup will earn a ticket to the conference championship game.