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College Football Playoff Committee Explains Alabama Earning Higher Ranking Than Miami

Warde Manuel, one of 13 members of the College Football Playoff Committee, offered reasoning behind Alabama (9–3) being ranked ahead of Miami (10–2).

Tom Dierberger

Cam Ward and the Miami Hurricanes lost 42–38 to Syracuse on Saturday to drop to 10–2 this season.
Cam Ward and the Miami Hurricanes lost 42–38 to Syracuse on Saturday to drop to 10–2 this season. / Rich Barnes-Imagn Images
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It appears the Miami Hurricanes are out of the 2024 College Football Playoff.

Miami (10–2) was slotted at No. 12 in the fifth iteration of the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday night, the final unofficial rankings before the bracket is set during Sunday's selection show. Although it's a 12-team bracket, the Hurricanes will be one of the first teams to miss the field due to the lowest-ranked conference champion (likely the winner of the Arizona State-Iowa State Big 12 championship game) set to hurdle their positioning.

Perhaps the most controversial team ahead of Miami to still have a shot at making the Playoff is Alabama (9–3) , ranked one spot ahead of the Hurricanes and given a No. 11 seed in the projected bracket despite having one more loss.

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, one of 13 members and chair of the College Football Playoff Committee, explained the reasoning behind Alabama earning a higher spot than Miami on ESPN's CFP Rankings Show on Tuesday night.

"Obviously, we think highly of both teams; one's at No. 11 and one's at No. 12. But what it really came down to is Alabama is 3–1 against current Top 25 teams and Miami is 0–1," Manuel said. "Alabama is 6–1 against teams above .500, and Miami is 4–2.

"Both have had some losses that weren't what they wanted out of those games. But in those last three games, Miami has lost twice. For us, in evaluating their body of work, we felt that Alabama got the edge over Miami."

Manuel also said the committee will "closely evaluate" the conference championships this weekend to decide the final bracket on Sunday. But he also confirmed that teams that aren't playing in a conference championship—like both Miami and Alabama—won't have their rankings adjusted in relation to other programs that are inactive this weekend.

"Those who are not playing, we will not adjust those teams because they won't have another data point," Manuel said. "... That is set in terms of how we see them going into the final week of championship week. There's nothing that's going to change for us to evaluate them any differently than we have now."

The official 12-team bracket will be officially unveiled Sunday in a four-hour show starting at 12 p.m. ET on ESPN. And Alabama will spend the weekend hoping no team behind them—notably No. 17 Clemson or No. 20 UNLV—wins their respective conference championships to leapfrog them in the rankings.

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Tom Dierberger
TOM DIERBERGER

Tom Dierberger is a staff writer and editor on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He joined SI in November 2023 after stints at FOX Sports, Bally Sports and NBC Sports. Dierberger has a bachelor's in communication from St. John's University. In his spare time, he can be seen throwing out his arm while playing fetch with his dog, Walter B. Boy.

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