College Football Playoff

Warde Manuel is in his eighth year as Michigan's Director of Athletics. Manuel returned to U-M following a nearly four-year run as Director of Athletics at the University of Connecticut. Before taking over UConn, he led the athletics department at State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo from 2005-12. Manuel graduated from U-M, where he played football under Bo Schembechler. He was coordinator of U-M's Wade H. McCree Jr. Incentive Scholarship Program from 1990 to 1993.

He subsequently worked briefly as an academic advisor and assistant athletics director for academics at Georgia Tech before returning to Ann Arbor, where he served in several roles within Michigan's athletic department from 1996-2005, eventually becoming an associate athletic director with oversight of football, men's and women's basketball, hockey and operational facets of the university's athletic department.

Manuel earned his bachelor of general studies degree with a focus in psychology in 1990. He went on to obtain his master's degree in social work from U-M in 1993 and an MBA from U-M's Stephen M. Ross School of Business in 2005.