Warde Manuel addresses CFP committee valuing Alabama's resume over Miami but not SMU

Less than a week ago, Warde Manuel cited No. 11 Alabama‘s strong record vs. current Top 25 teams for the College Football Playoff selection committee slotting a three-loss Crimson Tide (9-3) ahead of a two-loss Miami (10-2) in the penultimate Top 25 rankings last Tuesday night.

Yet, when the discussion about the College Football Playoff‘s final at-large bid once again came down to Alabama facing a similar head-to-head comparison with No. 10 SMU (11-2) – another ACC team with zero current Top 25 wins after falling to No. 16 Clemson, 34-31, in Saturday night’s championship game – the evaluation process changed Sunday.

Instead, the committee’s decision to drop the Mustangs just two spots to No. 10, thus ranking ahead of the idle No. 11 Crimson Tide, ultimately centered around SMU’s overall “body of work” and the proverbial eye-test for the 13-member CFP selection committee.

“Yeah, I mean, … the difference in terms of how we saw SMU was, going into (the ACC championship) game, they were undefeated in their conference. They had been playing very well in terms of what they were doing on the field, in the conference,” Manuel said on Sunday afternoon’s College Football Playoff teleconference with media. “So for us, as we looked at it, (SMU) lost to two ranked teams in terms of BYU by three (points) and Clemson (in the ACC title game).

“But it was just the performance. It was just their total body of work,” Manuel continued. “We felt as we examined SMU, undefeated in the conference versus when we looked at Miami, losing two of the last three (regular season games), we just felt they were different teams going into that championship weekend, and that’s why we had SMU slightly ahead of Alabama.”

Ahead of the Selection Day reveal, ESPN showed the differences in the Playoff resumes for both Alabama and SMU, with the Tide favored in all four metrics: strength of record (9th vs. 15th), strength of schedule (16th vs. 60th), game control (6th vs. 12th) and ESPN’s own FPI ranking (6th vs. 13th).

Of course, the ultimate decision was that of a subjective 13-member committee of humans rather than an analytics-based evaluation, and, at least in this moment, that fell in the Mustangs’ favor.

Paul Finebaum accuses committee of double talk in Alabama vs SMU debate

For ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum, there was a little bit of “double talk,” which made Sunday’s reveal a bit harder to swallow if you were an Alabama fan.

“I think there’s a little bit of confusion,” Finebaum said Sunday afternoon on ESPN’s College Football Playoff Selection Show. “I think there’s a little bit of double talk coming from Warde Manuel. I think more than a little bit, because he set one criteria and then I think everybody watching the ACC game last night could see what was happening. That amazing comeback, the last-second walk-off.

“And you start thinking if I’m in a room with a bunch of people, we’re all watching that, we’re probably going to gravitate toward SMU. And I think that’s what happened. But I think they forgot their criteria on the way toward awarding SMU the berth.”

Thomas Goldkamp contributed to this report.