How the new 12-team College Football Playoff schedule could adversely impact Army-Navy game

With the new College Football Playoff format comes sacrifices on the calendar and that could affect Army–Navy this coming season.

For now, there are no plans to move the game from its standalone weekend after conference championships, according to Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger. However, while they game might not move, the new season calendar could erase the tradition of the standalone game.

Dellenger broke it down how bowl games could get moved up amid four rounds of a CFP bracket.

“Bowl Season officials and their TV partner, ESPN, are exploring moving up the start of bowl games to the second weekend of December to free up television windows for the four first-round playoff games scheduled for the third weekend of December,” Dellenger wrote. “CFP leaders are examining how to consider a game (Army-Navy) that kicks off six days after CFP selections are made when the new format allots an automatic spot for the highest-ranked Group of Five champion.”

Army announced plans to join the AAC this coming season. Navy was already a member of the conference and both teams will compete for a conference title.

Doing so means either team could hypothetically be the highest ranked Group of Five champion, which gets an auto-bid to the College Football Playoff.

“It’s tricky. I don’t envy the decision-makers,” Mike Buddie, the Army athletic director who on Feb. 16 sent a letter to the CFP Management Committee about the situation, said. “I’m a realist. I understand there’s a lot of money and a lot of games to be played, but I still think Army-Navy transcends the sport of college football and has for decades.”

Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said the two sides will not move the game.

“There is still some uncertainty with all of that right now, but our hope is they will be respectful to the fact that that is America’s Game,” Gladchuk said. “It’s special nationally and special to our troops all over the world. There’s a respect about it that has been appreciated to date. Our associates have left that weekend alone.”

Heck, the CBS contract requires Army-Navy to be played on the first weekend date of December.

The hope is, according to Dellenger, even if bowl games are moved up to the same day based on the college football calendar, the time window of Army-Navy will be respected and kept as a standalone product.

The College Football Playoff, of course, is the big sticking point when it comes to the end of the regular season for the sport.

“Army-Navy stakeholders support the CFP retaining its current protocol for the new expanded field,” Dellenger wrote. “That means, in all likelihood, the selection committee seeding 11 of the 12 teams and keeping two options for the No. 12 seed: Army or Navy and the next-best conference champion in the Group of Five.

“In a letter sent to the CFP Management Committee and obtained by Yahoo Sports, Buddie emphasized that the school concedes to be seeded No. 12 if it were in contention and then wins the Army-Navy game, allowing the committee to complete all other first-round pairings.”

Another wrinkle to this? Army and Navy do not play in the regular season, but could end up being the top two teams in the AAC, hypothetically. That would mean playing the AAC Championship and then playing a rematch in the Army-Navy Game the very next week.

Welcome to the chaos of the 2024 college football calendar.