This season’s Big 12 football schedule follows the pattern of the perception so many held for years about the NBA. Just tune it at the end, went prevailing conventional wisdom. Nothing happens until the final two minutes anyway.

The difference: It never really fit for the NBA, even though the energy and entertainment value did spike at the end of games. In the case of the Big 12, it’s basically true.

With about half the conference schedule in the books, the six best Big 12 football games, all pitting one top-four Big 12 team vs. another, remain to be played. Those half-dozen games, plus new tiebreakers put into place, if necessary, will determine the conference’s one true champion.

The six can’t miss-games, four played in the state of Oklahoma, two in Texas, will be played on five different dates:

Nov. 7: TCU at Oklahoma State.

Nov. 14: Oklahoma at Baylor.

Nov. 21: Baylor at Oklahoma State; TCU at Oklahoma.

Nov. 27: Baylor at TCU.

Nov. 28: Oklahoma at Oklahoma State.

Note that all three of OSU’s big games take place in Stillwater, an edge for the Cowboys, but enough of an edge to enable them to win even one of them?

Baylor, Oklahoma and TCU play one at home, two on the road.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the top four teams don’t lose any remaining games to bottom five teams.

If you believe that OSU is a notch below the other three and loses all three games, let’s look at what happens if the home team wins each of the three games involving BU, OU and TCU. In other words, Baylor defeats Oklahoma and loses to TCU and Oklahoma defeats TCU. In that case, Oklahoma would finish third with two losses, having already lost to Texas. Baylor and TCU would be tied at the top with one loss. TCU, by virtue of its home-field victory vs. the Bears, would be declared the one true champion.

All four contenders have one sure path to a Big 12 title: Win out. Oklahoma would get in via tiebreakers if it wins out and ties another school.

A three-way tie remains a possibility (OU loses to all three and they all go 2-1), which would necessitate use of tiebreakers, but a two-way tie is far more likely.

Since the schedules of the four powerhouses are back-loaded, the current strength of schedule for all of them is artificially low, leading to their artificially low standing in the first college football playoff standings released Tuesday (6. Baylor, 8. TCU, 14. Oklahoma State, 15. Oklahoma).