Right now, the college football world is nothing without drama. After all, the college football playoff has dropped some bombs with their latest rankings that mark the penultimate set. And guess who attracted some controversy? The college football millionaire, Warde Manuel. Now that Michigan Wolverines playoff hopes are gone, it looks like the Michigan athletic director has found his new favorite. It’s none other than Kalen DeBoer’s Alabama Crimson Tide. But as soon as Manuel came forward to defend the latest College Football Playoff rankings, fans thrashed him for his blatant bias for the three-loss Alabama. 

Bad news for Miami Hurricanes fans! Mario Cristobal’s program would be the first team to be left out, while Bama would be in the field grabbing the final spot. Well, this seems to leave Hurricanes fans with ruffled feathers. After all, Alabama carries a burden of three losses this season, while Miami is at two losses. But still, DeBoer’s tribe managed to get the No.11 spot while Miami moved down six spots to No. 12. While Miami thought of gaining some support, here entered Manuel, adding fuel to the Alabama bias. So when charged about his take on why the Hurricanes got a lower rank even after staying ahead of the Ole Miss Rebels and South Carolina, Manuel tried to dodge the accusations, stating, “I just want to say to everybody on the call, these are not easy decisions for us to make.”

Miami’s been struggling lately, losing two of their last three games, and it looks like they’ve lost their mojo. In that case, even winning against a powerful program like the Georgia Bulldogs does not count much. Manuel himself admits how Miami has the “top offense in the country with 44 points and over 500 yards per game.” Thus he sidesteps the controversy by concluding, “So it’s pretty close.” 

But fans being fans are not going to leave Manuel so easily. After all, apart from holding the CFP chair, Manuel also holds an important role in Ann Arbor, where he earns an annual salary of $1.1 million. So the fans expected some maturity from Manuel which he lacked while blindly defending Bama.  

Warde Manuel defends Alabama but Miami fans aren’t having it 

Looks like, the Michigan staffer citing the reason behind Cristobal’s army getting a lower seat than Alabama did not sit well with the fans. Manuel stated, “We still think Miami is a very strong team. It came down to a difference in their body of work … not just wins, not just losses but the totality of the season and how those teams performed.” Enough of Alabama and Manuel’s perspective. Not being pleased with the explanation, Miami’s athletic director Dan Radakovich sounded off as he posted a tweet, stating, “Really?” With this, a fan too refused to take the Michigan staffer seriously: “Warde Manuel is a joke.”

After all, Miami fans argue that the Hurricanes won easily at Florida; they had a strong game in terms of yards and points per game, plus their losses at Georgia Tech and Syracuse were by a combined nine points. Now that Manuel turned a blind eye to these factors, he made a frustrated fan comment, “How in the world is the guy that leads the CFP committee? The guy is absolutely clueless.”

So in a way, Alabama politicked themselves out of losses that was okay with the officials. Now that Manuel is defending them, a fan questions his accountability, “Committee is full of a bunch of guys who really don’t know how to evaluate football. What kind of answer is this?”

“Fire this f- -king idiot immediately,” another upset fan raised a request for the committee to get rid of Warde Manuel. Despite their defensive struggles, Miami managed to finish the regular season as one of only seven teams nationally ranked in the top 25 for both yards gained and yards allowed per game. Thus one fan expressed their frustration with the latest CFB rankings, saying, “Absolute sick to my stomach.” Clearly, even solid stats couldn’t ease the sting of a tough season for some fans.