New college playoff in 2026 impacts A-N

[wpgrad]

The new college 16 team playoff proposal, which seems likely to pass and go into effect in 2026, will have first 4 games seeds 13-16 play on Army Navy weekend

Which means we either dont try to make playoff, or the game is being moved (which I think is inevitable)

[gabn92]

The game will have to move. Put it on “rivalry weekend” and negotiate the best deal we can…it would still be a good game for a network to contract and build a slate of rivalry games with. It would make it a conference game, opening up a slot for another non-conference game each season and keep it from being after the conference championship game which has resulted in a loss for both A and N after playing in the conference championship game. And it would keep the playoff as viable if all the stars aligned and we happened to get the slot for the auto bid.

[wpgrad]

I am not a fan of being in the AAC anyways but not having A-N as a conference game is just stupid. I would hope moving the game would be linked to making it a conference game, as you state.

[neumanna1]

Being an independent still wouldn’t solve this problem, for people who blame everything on the AAC. If Army and Navy were BOTH independents, maybe you could play in on conference championship weekend, but as long as Navy was still in the AAC, you’d have to move it to Rivalry Weekend anyway.

[Army Frog Fan]

I still say have it be played Thanksgiving night, as the only premier college game that day and have it go up against just one NFL game. Heck, per ESPN.com, it looks like Navy is already playing Memphis on Thanksgiving day this year.

EDIT: and per the link below, the AAC already has rights to that timeslot now.

https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2025/3/ ... 5-egg-bowl

[Oliphant]

I still say have it be played Thanksgiving night, as the only premier college game that day and have it go up against just one NFL game. Heck, per ESPN.com, it looks like Navy is already playing Memphis on Thanksgiving day this year.

EDIT: and per the link below, the AAC already has rights to that timeslot now.

https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2025/3/ ... 5-egg-bowl

Good luck with national eyeballs then.

The NFL OWNS Thanksgiving.

Americans are patriotic unless it is the NFL.

[hammerdown]

I still say have it be played Thanksgiving night, as the only premier college game that day and have it go up against just one NFL game. Heck, per ESPN.com, it looks like Navy is already playing Memphis on Thanksgiving day this year.

EDIT: and per the link below, the AAC already has rights to that timeslot now.

https://www.underdogdynasty.com/2025/3/ ... 5-egg-bowl

Good luck with national eyeballs then.

The NFL OWNS Thanksgiving.

Americans are patriotic unless it is the NFL.

Plus, How would that go over with 4k Cadets and Mids who now could
not go home for Thanksgiving.

[Tacoff]

Poor babies. They wouldn’t be able to go home for Thanksgiving? We never did. Plus we stayed at WP for all of Christmas.

[kfan12]

Poor babies. They wouldn’t be able to go home for Thanksgiving? We never did. Plus we stayed at WP for all of Christmas.

Not sure if the old "mission first, people always" is still in vogue, but the concept of getting the mission done while taking care of people I'm hoping hasn't changed.... all Cadets are well-past beast by Thanksgiving. There's no principle of leadership that supports the notion that their time with family should be taken away because someone else lost theirs, especially so that a fan can watch a game.

[Army Frog Fan]

The "big time" matchup between Tulane and Memphis took in 650k viewers last year and, as stated above, Navy if already playing this year on Thanskgiving day and Army is playing the next day. You really think A-N is going to pull in more eyeballs going up against games that weekend like Texas-Texas A&M, Alabama-Auburn, Ole Miss-Miss St, UGA-GT, Airzona-ASU, Florida, FSU, USC, UCLA, etc., etc., etc. or against the first round of playoff games, all of which will draw more college football eyeballs away from A-N?

If you throw it up against one NFL game on Thanksgiving night on ESPN, it would definitely get more eyeballs than the scenario above. It's where we are at this point.

As for the Cadets/Mids missing Thanksgiving day at home, that's an easy fix. They can fly/drive home after the game or the following day and give them Monday off. Millions of people in the country have to celebrate holidays on different days because or travel/work issues.