Why Army-Navy Will Be A Non-Conference Game In 2024 And Beyond

The Black Knights will join the American Athletic Conference in 2024 as a football-only member

The American Athletic Conference formally announced Army as the league's 14th member for the 2024 football season on Wednesday. Part of the terms of Army's membership include the scheduling of the matchup with Navy as a non-conference game. 

The historic Army-Navy Game will continue to be played annually as a non-conference game on the second weekend in December. Navy is also a football-only member of the AAC. 

Thursday afternoon, Army West Point Director of Athletics Mike Buddie discussed the move with members of the local and national media on a Zoom call.

Buddie clarified the reasoning behind ensuring the game would be a non-conference matchup.

"[AAC] Commissioner [Mike] Aresco, who ironically used to work for CBS on the Army-Navy property, completely grasped the uniqueness of that," Buddie said. "It's less about never having it be a conference game, but it's always going to be on that date: the second Saturday in December. In fairness to the other schools in the American, we can't ask for them to wait for us to play that game and name a champion because the regular season will have completed. So it just made more sense to completely carve it out. We'll play eight other [conference] teams every year, Navy will play eight other [conference] teams, and we'll just play each other in that war that we have every December and continue to protect it and have all eyes of the country on those young men who are doing their best to represent their country honorably." 

CBS is the official media partner of the Army-Navy game. The 2022 edition of the game drew 6.9 million viewers in 2022 and was one of the 15 most-watched college football games of the year.

The possibility remains open for Army and Navy to play in the AAC Championship game. They would then play each other again on the aforementioned second weekend in December.