Michigan A.D. Warde Manuel adds a new endeavor to his plate

Michigan Athletic Director Warde Manuel has been spending the last several weeks working on details of a new contract for Jim Harbaugh. He’ll soon have something else on his plate, as well.

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The College Football Playoff (CFP) Management Committee has appointed Manuel and three others to the CFP Selection Committee, effective this year. N.C. State Athletics Director Boo Corrigan, meanwhile, is the new selection committee chair, replacing Iowa A.D. Gary Barta. He’s been the chair the last two seasons.

U.S. Nayy A.D.Chet Gladchuk, former Wake Forest and Baylor coach Jim Grobe and sportswriter Kelly Whiteside are the other additions. The four replace Barta, Paola Boivin, Charlie Cobb and Tyrone Willingham, whose terms have expired.

“Chet, Jim, Warde and Kelly will be outstanding additions to the committee as we enter our ninth season,” Bill Hancock, Executive Director of the CFP, said. “Their expertise, knowledge and integrity, along with their love of college football, will allow them to fit right in with the returning members.”

Manuel is in his sixth year as Michigan’s Director of Athletics. A former player under Bo Schembechler, Manuel returned to Ann Arbor following a nearly four-year run as UConn A.D. He was coordinator of Michigan’s Wade H. McCree Jr. Incentive Scholarship Program from 1990 to 1993.

Manuel worked briefly as an academic advisor and assistant athletic director for academics at Georgia Tech. He then served in several roles within Michigan’s athletic department from 1996-2005. He eventually became an associate athletic director with oversight of football, men’s and women’s basketball, hockey and operational facets of the university’s athletic department. 

Manuel earned his bachelor of general studies degree with a focus in psychology in 1990. He also received his master’s degree in social work from U-M in 1993, and an MBA from U-M’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business in 2005.

CFP Selection Committee has many duties

The CFP selection committee is responsible for selecting the top four teams in the playoff and assigning them to semifinal games. It also ranks the other top 25 teams. The committee meets in person beginning late in the football season and produces a ranking of the top 25 teams each week leading up to its final selections.

The other returning selection committee members are Mitch Barnhart (athletics director, University of Kentucky), Tom Burman (athletics director, University of Wyoming), Boo Corrigan (athletics director, North Carolina State University), Rick George (athletics director, University of Colorado), Will Shields (former All-American offensive lineman, University of Nebraska), Gene Taylor (athletics director, Kansas State University), Joe Taylor (Vice President for Athletics and Community Wellness, Virginia Union University), John Urschel (member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ and former All-American offensive lineman, Penn State University), and Rod West (group president Entergy Corporation and former linebacker at the University of Notre Dame).

The College Football Playoff matches the No. 1 ranked team vs. No. 4, and No. 2 vs. No. 3 in semifinal games that rotate annually among six bowl games – the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, PlayStation Fiesta Bowl, Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Allstate Sugar Bowl and Rose Bowl Game.

This season’s Playoff Semifinals will take place Saturday, December 31, 2022, at the Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl. The National Championship will be Monday, January 9, 2023, at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California.