REPORTS:CFP Excludes Army-Navy Game: 12-Team Selection Unaffected…

Resigning CFP executive director Bill Hancock announced on Wednesday that the Army-Navy Game will not affect the 12-team College Football Playoff selection process that occurs six days earlier. This is a policy change from the four-team structure

The matchup has historically been held on the second Saturday of December, after the CFP releases its final rankings. Academy officials did not want to move the annual rivalry to earlier in the schedule to accommodate the final rankings in the 12-team Playoff era.

Army and Navy had anticipated that if either academy was in the running for the American Athletic Conference championship, the CFP would take into consideration the idea of seeding 11 of the 12 teams and holding out for the Group of 5’s automatic slot. The committee would have had to wait on Army-Navy if either had been in the running for the top four or if Navy had been able to finish as the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion, which was almost the case in 2016. That was the case under the previous four-team CFP/New Year’s Six arrangement. Rather of winning the AAC title game, Navy’s chances of being invited to the Cotton Bowl were dashed.

But CFP officials determined this week at their annual spring meetings they couldn’t ask another CFP participant to wait a full week to learn their opponent with a shorter turnaround before the 12-team Playoff began. First-round games on campus will take place one week after Army-Navy.

“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 said. “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).”

The new policy does create a situation in which Army or Navy might defeat the other institution six days later and still advance to the CFP after winning the AAC and qualifying as the top G5 champion.

This year, Army will become a football-only member of the AAC, although its yearly meeting with Navy will continue to be played as a nonconference event. This is because of the game’s contract with CBS as well as the fact that it is the only conference game on the schedule (the AAC has an exclusive arrangement with ESPN). Army and Navy would play in back-to-back weeks if both teams advanced to the AAC championship.

The CFP will not postpone its three first-round games to a different Saturday in December, according to Hancock’s statement on Wednesday. According to Puck, the NFL is displeased because the CFP would host games on the first Saturday of the year, which is the legal day for NFL games to be played according to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961.

“I read that. I don’t see it,” Hancock said. “Could we have played Thursday or more than one game Friday? No great options. Where we settled out was an option ESPN was happy with.”

• Washington athletic director Pat Chun has stepped down from the CFP selection committee as a result of his move from the Washington State AD job. Hancock said the CFP will find a new at-large committee member to serve Chun’s three-year term.

• The CFP also increased its travel budget for team family members from $1.5 million over three games to $7.5 million over 11 games.