Warde Manuel, CFP committee show 12-team selection process has potential of bright future

Selection Sunday has been consistent in college basketball for years. The 32 conference tournament winners automatically make the field of 68 teams, and the next best 36 résumés get in after that. During the 2024 College Football Playoff Selection Show, CFP chairman and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel took strides in getting football to that same level of consistency.

This year's CFP debate came down to the final at-large bid: three-loss Alabama or two-loss SMU that lost to Clemson in the ACC championship game.

SMU, which played its game in Clemson territory, won out, and Manuel made it very clear why for the past two weeks.

After rivalry week, he made it clear that teams not playing in their conference title game were not going to move in the rankings, meaning they weren't going to be directly rewarded for another team losing a championship game. This week, he laid out a blueprint that basketball programs have grasped for decades.

Before Manuel was interviewed by ESPN's Rece Davis, former Alabama head coach Nick Saban vehemently made his case for the Crimson Tide because of their Strength of Schedule compared to SMU's. He then made the argument that Alabama was screwed last week because of SMU's seeding.

SMU entered the week comfortably in the playoff field, which Saban felt was wrong. He believed the Mustangs should've been seeded below the Crimson Tide so that the ACC title game was a play-in, just like the Big 12 championship, because Alabama had the tougher schedule and ranked wins.

As the playoff evolves, that argument will hold up as résumés become more important. However, Manuel told Davis something that killed Saban's argument.

Résumés are not just about good wins, they're also about bad losses. Manuel told Davis that teams should win the games they're favorited to win on paper and schedule tough non-conference games, alluding to Michigan's game against Texas this season and upcoming home-and-homes against Oklahoma and Notre Dame.

While Alabama went 4-2 against ranked opponents, they lost to Vanderbilt and were blown out by a very mediocre Sooners squad. The Tide also had a poor non-conference slate.

With that argument, Manuel and the committee proved to be organized and on the correct track of selecting teams in the future, and their criteria will benefit college sports overall.

The SEC and Big Ten tried to corner the market with the expansion of their conferences and abandoning of their divisions. Their commissioners will boast about how great their leagues are compared to everyone else and advocate that the rest of college football will bow down to them.

What they willfully ignore is that these packed conferences lead to teams avoiding a lot of good foes during league play, much like Texas and Oregon did this season — especially considering how ordinary the Big Ten was this season.

Did Indiana, Notre Dame, Penn State, Ohio State, Texas and Tennessee leave more to be desired by their résumés? Absolutely. But they also prove Manuel's point while shutting Saban down — avoid the bad losses and you can make the playoff.

It's not like the committee didn't think Alabama was one of the 12 best teams in the country, either. The Crimson Tide were ranked 11th in the nation. Clemson just stole a bid, as we've seen in college basketball many times. Contrary to what the folks in Tuscaloosa may think, they're subject to the same experiences as everyone else in the country.

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