One of the biggest rivalry games in the college football season is renewed Saturday just outside the nation’s capital: the Army-Navy Game.
The 18th-ranked Black Knights (11-1 overall) and Midshipmen (8-3) will meet at Northwest Stadium for the 125th rendition of “America’s Game,” a matchup that will feature the triple-option heavily — as it does in most years.
Both programs enter Saturday’s contest with a combined 19-4 overall record, which is the most wins combined by both teams heading into the Army-Navy Game per Army’s Game Notes.
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In their first season in the American Athletic Conference, the Black Knights took the league with ease as Army went undefeated 8-0 in conference play en route to winning the conference championship title last Friday vs. Tulane.
Navy has cooled off a little after its 6-0 start to the year, finishing the regular season with just two wins in the last five games. Both programs saw their College Football Playoff resume and odds take a slight hit by the hands of Notre Dame at two different points of the regular season.
Despite that loss for the Black Knights back on Nov. 23 at Yankee Stadium, Jeff Monken’s squad has maintained their top 25 ranking in the US LBM Coaches Poll for the last nine weeks. But Saturday’s Army-Navy Game won’t have any impact on the CFP with both teams already accepting bowl game invitations in the coming weeks.
Here’s what you need to know on why Saturday’s Army-Navy Game has no bearings on the College Football Playoff, including a look at the Black Knights’ and Midshipmen‘s bowl game appearances:
No. Saturday’s Army-Navy Game will not have any impact on the College Football Playoff. Either Army or Navy could have made the CFP as the “Group of Five” automatic bid but the Mountain West’s Boise State took that spot.
The reason Saturday’s Army-Navy Game won’t have any impact on the CFP bracket and CFP top 25 rankings is two fold.
The first is while Army is now a member of the American Athletic Conference with Navy, Saturday’s game is considered a non-conference game. The second, and perhaps most notable, is the 12-team CFP field has already been finalized.
According to The Athletic, officials from Army and Navy “did not want to move” the date of “America’s Game” to an earlier part of their schedules “to accommodate the final rankings in the 12-team Playoff era.”
The CFP committee had turned down the idea of waiting to announce the “Group of 5” automatic representative in the CFP bracket until after the Army-Navy Game, if either team was in the mix for that spot.
Per The Athletic, the reason for turning that idea down was the turnaround between the Army-Navy Game and the first round of the CFP would have been too quick for a team that learned it made the 12-team field the week prior but didn’t know its opponent.
“There’s a lot of complications of waiting a week in a 12-team playoff and you have a short timeframe,” AAC commissioner Mike Aresco told The Athletic in April. “It’s one thing in a four-team and you’re not playing until the end of the month. It’s a lot different playing (two weeks later).”
Here’s a look at the finalized CFP bracket from Sunday’s final CFP rankings:
* denotes automatic bid with first-round bye; ** denotes automatic bid
Army is set to face Marshall in the Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl on Saturday, Dec. 28. The Black Knights and Thundering Herd will kick off at 9:15 p.m. ET inside Independence Stadium in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Navy is set to face Oklahoma in the Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl on Friday, Dec. 27. The Midshipmen and Sooners will kick off at noon ET at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas.
