The College Football Playoff chairman had a particularly tough job with the 4th edition of the Playoff rankings on Tuesday night, with those 2-loss teams and now even 3-loss teams to consider.

For example, Week 13 wasn’t kind to high-profile teams like Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M, which all suffered their 3rd loss of the season, making CFP chair Warde Manuel and his committee have to consider how to spit out those rankings come Tuesday night.

ESPN host Rece Davis asked Manuel during Tuesday’s selection show what the committee’s “appetite” was for ranking 3-loss teams ahead of 2-loss teams or 2-loss teams ahead of 1-loss teams.

“The appetite is there to rank the teams as we see them. If a team (has) one more loss than a team in front of them and we feel like they should be ahead of them, then we’ve shown that we will do that,” said Manuel.

And what about putting teams with multiple losses among the top 12 of the rankings?

“The committee’s never been afraid to rank teams with multiple losses within the top 12 if we see them that way,” explained Manuel.


Manuel’s last claim was backed up Tuesday night by the committee placing 3 teams with multiple losses in the top 12 — No. 7 Georgia, No. 8 Tennessee and No. 12 Clemson, who are all 9-2 with 1 week to go in the regular season.