CFP recommends holding bowl spot for Navy
Navy will not be held out of prominent bowls due to the timing of its annual showdown with Army. (USATSI)The College Football Playoff will hold a spot in affected New Year’s Six bowls for one week after the traditional end of the regular season if Navy is worthy of receiving such a bid, CFP executive director Bill Hancock told CBSSports.com Tuesday.
The decision would essentially delay the college football postseason picture another week if Navy is in contention for the CFP’s automatic berth that goes to the best Group of Five conference team.
The CFP had to account for Navy’s move into the American Athletic Conference in 2015 as well as the Midshipmen’s traditional game with Army played a week after the regular season. Both schools have said they would not budge off that date. This year, it is Dec. 12. For 126 other teams, the season ends Dec. 5, at the latest.
Only bowls affected by possible Navy inclusion will be held open, Hancock said. The FBS commissioners made the recommendation to the CFP board of managers (college presidents) at the annual Collegiate Commissioners Association meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. It is expected to be approved.
Army does not have automatic access to the system unless it is ranked No. 1-4 in the final CFP Ranking. Teams finishing in those top four spots participate in the playoff. If Navy and/or Army get that high, spots would be held open in the playoff until after their game is completed.
Short of that, Navy would be eligible for the automatic spot in one of the New Year’s Six bowl given to the highest ranked team at the end of the season from the Group of Five (American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt).
If eligible, Navy would then play in one of three so-called “access” bowls — Cotton, Fiesta or Peach. Last year, that spot went to Boise State, which played in the Fiesta Bowl in the first year of the CFP. The other three “contract” bowls — Orange, Rose and Sugar — are contracted with conferences and Notre Dame when not passing through as national semifinals.
Navy has not played in a major bowl since the 1963 Cotton Bowl.
Should Navy be in the running, that most likely forces the CFP Selection Committee to identify the top two contenders for that Group of Five automatic berth for at least the final week. If Navy loses to Army, then the No. 2 team would move up, its season already completed at least a week beforehand.
If the Army-Navy game matters in the above scenarios, the selection committee may also have to hold off its final rankings until the day after. That would allow all other unaffected New Year’s Six bowls to be populated prior to the Army-Navy game. But for posterity’s sake — at least for bonus clauses in coaches’ contracts — those final rankings would have to be delayed until after the game.
“We haven’t thought of it in terms of redoing the rankings,” Hancock said. “The committee will decide if the Army-Navy result would effect the playoff or bowl assignments. Then they would delay the pairings as necessary.
“We didn’t talk about the rankings. All we talked about were bowl slots that would be affected.”
Last season, the selection committee did not identify its top Group of Five team until placing Marshall in the rankings late in the season.
CBSSports.com previously reported if Navy lost the automatic bid because of an Army loss, it could swap bowl places with that No. 2 team as determined by the selection committee. Navy then would play in the bowl previously slotted to that No. 2 team.
“We haven’t really settled on it yet,” American commissioner Mike Aresco said. “We talked about various protocols.”
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