Next year’s Army-Navy football game will be held Dec. 4, 2027, at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field, one week earlier than originally scheduled.

The service academies announced the move on Nov. 9, the same day the College Football Playoff Management Committee officially expanded its playoff field to 24 teams in 2027, doubling the number from this year’s postseason tournament.

This year’s Army-Navy game remains set for 3 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 12 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., home to the NFL’s New York Giants and Jets.

New Schedule, New Playoff Format

The 24-team playoff will begin the first full week of December. Army and Navy will be eligible for the tournament, and no playoff games will be “scheduled in conflict” with the rivalry showdown, according to the committee’s press release. The tournament field will be set before the rivalry game is played, so the result will not affect the selection process.

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The 2027 tournament will include the conference champions from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Big Ten, Big 12, and Southeastern Conference (SEC) as well as the highest-ranked team from the American Athletic Conference (AAC), Conference USA, Mid-American Conference (MAC), Mountain West, Pac-12, or Sun Belt. Army and Navy are AAC members; Air Force, which claimed this year’s Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy with a 24-21 win over Army on Nov. 7, plays in the Mountain West.

The rest of the 24-team field will be made up of the 19 highest-ranked teams in the selection committee’s final ranking. First- and second-round playoff games will be held at the home stadium of the team with the higher seed.

Army ranked 22nd in the committee’s final 2024 rankings, which would have put the Black Knights into an expanded tournament field. Navy’s No. 23 ranking on the final 2019 list would’ve put the Midshipmen into an expanded postseason.

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This year’s AAC title game will be played the week before the Army-Navy rivalry game. It’s unclear when or whether the conference will play a football championship game in 2027 – the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC will not play championship games as part of the transition to the expanded playoff.

Cities and dates for Army-Navy football games beyond 2027 have not been announced, though the games will air on CBS-TV and Paramount+ until at least 2038.

The 2026 12-team playoff begins Friday, Dec. 18, with a first-round game at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.