The Army-Navy football game will remain on its hallowed weekend, regardless of when the College Football Playoff participants are selected.
The annual game is played on the second Saturday of December, the only game that weekend, so as not to share the national spotlight with other games. However, the final College Football Playoff rankings are set to be released the previous weekend, after the conclusion of conference championship games. And with Navy’s season not yet complete, they could miss out on one of those six New Year’s bowls.
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And after initially looking into a date change in January, the two sides decided to stand pat.
"We have no intention of moving it. None," Navy athletics director Chet Gladchuk told USA Today. "It would show that we've realigned our priorities in a way that doesn't complement our mission. We can't do it. It's something that's that special."
Navy joins the American Athletic Conference in 2015 and could conceivably win the conference and be the highest-ranked team from the Group of 5 conferences (American Athletic, Mountain West, Conference USA, Mid-American and Sun Belt). The highest-ranked of those five conferences, if not in the College Football Playoff, would receive an automatic bid into the Peach Bowl or Fiesta Bowl.
However, Navy’s matchup with Army won’t count when the final CFP rankings are released the previous weekend.
"If it means that we've got to sacrifice the opportunity to participate in the playoff system, then that's something we'll have to deal with," Gladchuk said. "We'll have to work on that."
As for Army, an independent program with no conference affiliation, the sanctity of the game was paramount.
"I think it is a stand-alone game," Army athletics director Boo Corrigan said. "I think we do hold a place in the history of college football. And the idea of that game being a stand-alone is very, very important to us."
In the future, Gladchuk hopes the CFP committee will enact a hypothetical situation that, in the event Navy is the highest-rated non-major-conference champion after completing conference play, the Midshipmen get an access bowl bid if they defeat Army and also have a backup if Navy loses.