TV networks starting to turn on Army-Navy game’s placement on college football schedule

All week, major TV hosts from Disney/ABC and FOX have criticized the timing of the Army-Navy game, which was scheduled the week before the College Football Playoff's first round.

On Thursday, Paul Finebaum called the Saturday the game is played on, a week after conference championships and a week before the CFP’s first round of action, a “wasted” Saturday.

“Well we’re wasting a week, I know I’m going to upset somebody, but the week of the Army-Navy game needs to be the playoffs,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show. “That is a wasted Saturday. What do we have? We have the Army-Navy game and the Heisman. We can’t figure that out some other time?”

Joel Klatt took a much more respectful approach to the game while making the same point on the latest episode of his podcast released this past Monday.

“I don’t think that we should have Army-Navy right after the conference championship games,” Klatt said. “I believe that the Army-Navy game is one of the most special events that we have in our country. It’s one of the great football games on the planet, and it’s getting pinched where it’s at. I know it’s the traditional time frame and point of season, but think about it — Army and Navy are now in a conference. Yet, their game doesn’t have any bearing on whether they’re going to the conference championship game or not, which we just saw this year with Navy. Then, they’ve got to play that game, which is, you know — it’s going to mean everything to them and should, because again, in a lot of ways, outside of the Rose Bowl, it’s the most historic college football game that we have.

“So what do we do with Army-Navy? It’s getting pinched by the Heisman. It’s getting pinched by the Playoff. We now play a bowl game on the same day. It’s not in the right spot. Army-Navy needs to start the football season. Week Zero of football. And mind you, I didn’t say college. I didn’t say the NFL. It’s because it’s both.”

The latest rendition of Army-Navy was a 31-13 blowout that didn’t do TV execs any favors. The Black Knights’ top-10 Heisman candidate, Bryson Daily, had three turnovers and Army mustered 113 yards of rushing offense on 3.2 yards per carry.

It may not be shocking that TV networks want to maximize profits at the expense of tradition, but the Army-Navy felt exempt.

Nothing is exempt from change in the era of NIL, though.