Warde Manuel pushes back on narrative that playing easy schedule is smart for Playoff selection

Warde Manuel won’t be sitting at the head of the table the next time the College Football Playoff selection committee meets after the group’s management committee named Baylor‘s Mack Rhoades as its new chairman for the 2025 season. But that hasn’t stopped the Michigan athletics director from shooting down the ongoing narratives surrounding the committee’s decision-making process.

This comes after last season’s inaugural 12-team CFP field created controversy by its perceived snub of a trio of three-loss SEC teams — Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina — in favor of one-loss Indiana and two-loss ACC runner-up SMU, both of which were bounced in their opening round matchups. It prompted some within the SEC, namely Rebels head coach Lane Kiffin and Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer, to question the committee’s thinking and suggesting a reevaluation of the conference’s preference for strong non-conference competition versus fellow Power 4 programs.

During a recent appearance on The Triple Option podcast with former Ohio State and Florida head coach Urban Meyer, Manuel outright dismissed any suggestion that a weaker non-conference schedule would be beneficial to making future Playoff fields.

“I don’t agree with some of my colleagues who think that (not) playing a tough non-conference opponent is the right way to go, that you’re better off,” Manuel said. “I think the committee values those games. There’s no doubt about it that we understand when teams play tough opponents and they have a loss.

“If you look at it, Alabama (9-4) was the highest ranked three-loss team because they had a very tough schedule and they won some tough games. But they were 11^th in the last ranking because they also had some bad losses. So there was a balance there.”

Warde Manuel dismisses criticism surrounding Indiana making 2024 CFP field

Manuel then addressed the oft-heard complaint against Indiana (11-2), which went undefeated through its first 11 games vs. the 106th-ranked strength of schedule prior to losing to eventual national champion Ohio State in Week 13. Following a 38-15 loss vs. the Buckeyes, the Hoosiers backed into the 12-team CFP field as the No. 10 seed two weeks later before losing to eventual national runner-up Notre Dame 27-17 in the opening round. Manuel acknowledged Indiana didn’t pick its Big Ten schedule, but made no mention of the Hoosiers’ non-conference schedule that included FIU, Western Illinois and Charlotte, which were a combined 13-23 in 2024.

“It’s hard because of the increase of the number of teams in these conferences, you’re not always getting top teams either playing each other or playing other teams that are playing well in that particular year,” Manuel continued. “That is, I think, the thing that really sort of complicates the ability to have like resumes in front of you when you’re judging a team that plays a light schedule and wins – and wins either in a big way or just wins – and a team that plays a tougher schedule but may have some losses to tougher teams.

“I think in the discussion, in the discourse that goes on in the room, we actually evaluate that and talk through those things about how we see a team regardless of whether they lost to a tough opponent. Are they still one of the Top 10, Top 15, Top 25 teams in the country?”

Meyer took the opportunity to ask Manuel if the committee ever entertains the frequently-cited hypothetical of how a small-market team like SMU or Utah would fare in a more competitive conference such as the Big Ten and SEC, to which Manuel immediately shut down.

“It’s hard to do because it’s not going to happen. As the chair, I’m trying to keep hypothetical situations out of the conversation,” Manuel said before pointing out that traditionally dominant programs such as Alabama — without mentioning them — suffered inexplicable losses last season. “So it’s hard, people want to go that way outside of the committee room. But all we can do is judge the resumes we see in front of us, and judge people by whom they play. We can’t say, ‘What would happen if Michigan had the same schedule as Indiana?’ … We can’t go to those places because that’s not what exists in front of us. So whether it’s a Boise or Utah compared to an Alabama or Michigan, you can’t reverse it and play them, and then say hypothetically in our mind how would that play out.”