CFP sets dates for rankings, Navy's eligibility still undecided
The weekly College Football Playoff rankings will carry over into 2015, but there will be one fewer set of rankings.
The CFP announced Wednesday that the first set of six weekly top 25 rankings will be unveiled on Tuesday, Nov. 3. The updated rankings will be released each subsequent Tuesday – Nov. 10, Nov. 17, Nov. 24, and Dec. 1 – until the final four playoff teams are revealed on Sunday, Dec. 6.
“College football is booming in popularity. Fans eagerly await the weekly rankings because they love the competition and want to know how close their team is to making the playoff,” said Bill Hancock, the Executive Director of the College Football Playoff. “The committee takes its job seriously, it works very hard, and we look forward to beginning the second season of the new College Football Playoff.”
Another issue on the College Football Playoff discussed Wednesday was Navy’s potential eligibility for a New Year’s Six bowl game.
The Midshipmen, who will officially begin their first season in the American Athletic Conference in the fall, have their annual rivalry matchup with Army scheduled for Dec. 12 – the weekend after the final CFP rankings are unveiled (Dec. 6).
According to ESPN.com, some conference commissioners are “concerned” with a situation in which Navy could be ranked high enough to earn a bid to a New Year’s bowl (the highest-ranked Group of Five champion earns a bid to the Peach or Fiesta bowl), but then loses to Army in the following week.
As CFP policy currently stands, the Army-Navy game would not count toward Navy’s final ranking.
From ESPN.com:
As the current policy dictates – as did the BCS rankings system – that game result would not count toward Navy's final ranking, penalizing other teams that would have earned a New Year's Six bowl bid if the game was factored in. The College Football Playoff policy states the rankings compiled by the committee on selection day (Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015) will be the final version for purposes of identifying the teams in the playoff.
The CFP commissioners have not reached a decision on Navy’s eligibility.
Navy athletic director Chet Gladchuk said in January that moving the Army-Navy game to another date is not an option.
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
