Paul Finebaum questions Michigan AD Warde Manuel's role on CFP committee amid scandal

With the Michigan football program both ranked in the top four of the College Football Playoff rankings and embroiled in scandal, this had to be a tough week for CFP committee member and Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel.

According to college football insider Heather Dinich, despite the pickle Manuel is stuck in, he remains a highly-respected member of the committee. And, of course, he has to leave the room when his own school is discussed.

“Warde Manuel, Michigan’s Athletic Director, is on the selection committee. He has to walk out and recuse himself. There is a lot of respect for him in the room,” explained Dinich when she and Paul Finebaum joined GetUp Wednesday morning to break down the situation. She added that CFP chairmen said the ongoing situations with Jim Harbaugh and the Michigan program was “not an issue in the room at all for them.”

Finebaum found the situation rather comedic, since he claims that Manuel and Harbaugh are not buddies while Manuel is trying to save face for Michigan because of Harbaugh.

“I mean, Heather’s 100% correct, but I’m just laughing at the idea that the man in the middle of all of this, Warde Manuel, who is Jim Harbaugh’s boss — and by the way, every report out of Michigan indicates that these two do not like each other at all — that he’s sitting there at lunch, drinks at night, hors d’oeuvres, saunas in the morning, that nobody’s saying, ‘hey Warde, what’s the deal?'”

Paul Finebaum simply isn’t buying that Manuel is on the sidelines for any and all Michigan discussion, which could put the committee between a rock and hard place down the road.

“I mean, this is a collegial group of people and I find it impossible to believe that Warde Manuel is not advising these people on what he knows or at least giving them some smoke signals.

“So I love the committee, they can look at every nuance, every powerpoint, but they can’t look at the elephant in the room and potentially one of the biggest scandals in college football history… that your about-to-be No. 1 team in the country down the road could be as scandalous as any program we’ve seen in a long time.”

Dinich then added that she believes the situation was likely addressed in some capacity in the room, even if it ultimately had no bearing on how the rankings shook out.

“I would shocked, to Paul’s point, if Warde Manuel, at the beginning of the meeting on Monday, didn’t address the elephant in the room, and then everybody moved on from it. I don’t know what he said, I don’t know if he said anything, but I would be surprised if he didn’t say something and just clear the air and they get to move on.”