College Football Playoff: Warde Manuel defends SMU as final seed over Alabama

For the second straight year, the Alabama Crimson Tide was at the center of the controversy surrounding the release of the latest College Football Playoff field. Only this year, it didn’t go the Tide’s way.

A year after edging out an ACC champion and undefeated Florida State for the fourth and final Playoff bid, a three-loss Alabama (9-3) found itself on the other side of the coin as the first team out of the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff field.

In an ironic twist of fate, ACC runner-up SMU (11-2) got the nod after losing to Clemson on a last-season field goal, dropping just two spots to No. 10 and finishing ahead of No. 11 Alabama for the Playoff’s final at-large bid on Selection Day.

During a Sunday afternoon appearance on ESPN’s College Football Playoff Selection Show, CFP committee chairman Warde Manuel explained the controversial decision.

“Your debate on television really summed up the debate had in the room,” Manuel said to ESPN’s Rece Davis. “We looked at the number of wins Alabama had against ranked opponents. We looked at SMU’s schedule and they were undefeated in-conference. Their losses were to ranked teams. But we also looked at Alabama’s losses to unranked teams. And it was quite a debate.

“We value strength of schedule. That’s why Alabama as a three-loss team is ranked ahead of other teams that have two losses. It’s something that we talked about quite a bit. But in the balance of it, the way SMU played in that game, losing on a last-second field goal, great win by Clemson, great game. We just felt that in this particular case, SMU still had the nod at 10 above of Alabama. And that’s no disrespect to Alabama’s strength of schedule. It’s merely looking at the entire body of work for both teams.”

Ultimately, the committee valued the Mustangs’ overall “body of work” with 11 wins and an undefeated conference run through its first season in the ACC over a Crimson Tide team that lost on the road to unranked Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, the latter of which was a troubling 21-point loss in a game where Alabama came in as a three-touchdown favorite.

TV assignments, game times revealed for first-round CFP games, quarterfinals

For the first time, College Football Playoff games will air on multiple networks. ESPN and TNT Sports announced a deal to sublicense first-round matchups on campus sites, and those assignments came out following the bracket reveal.

The 12-team bracket came out Sunday, which revealed the first-round matchups. Under the new format, the four highest-ranked conference champions will receive byes. Oregon, Georgia, Boise State and Arizona State came in as the respective top four seeds, meaning they won’t start their CFP runs until the quarterfinals.

The CFP officially kicks off Dec. 20 with one game on the schedule. Here are the full TV assignments for the first-round games.

First-round games (campus sites)

• Dec. 20: Indiana at Notre Dame – Dec. 20, 8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN
• Dec. 21: SMU at Penn State – Dec. 21, Noon ET, TNT/Max
• Dec. 21: Clemson at Texas – Dec. 21, 4 p.m. ET, TNT/Max
• Dec. 21: Tennessee at Ohio State – Dec. 21, 8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN

Quarterfinals

• Fiesta Bowl: Boise State vs. SMU/Penn State – Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN
• Peach Bowl: Arizona State vs. Clemson/Texas – Jan. 1, 1 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN
• Rose Bowl Game: Oregon vs. Tennessee/Ohio State – Jan. 1, 5 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN
• Sugar Bowl: Georgia vs. Indiana/Notre Dame – Jan. 1, 8:45 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN