Fans of college sports have seen the landscape reach a point where there's just as much action in court rooms and with the government than there is on the field. As NIL, Revenue Sharing, and the Transfer Portal have changed college sports in drastic fashion, schools have turned to the government to attempt to fix some of the issues.
President Donald Trump has become increasingly involved in college sports hosting roundtables while pitching potential fixes to the NCAA's biggest issues. On Friday, Donald Trump issued an executive order that could give the NCAA even more problems to solve rather than helping.
Donald Trump's Army-Navy executive order won't help the CFP calendar crisis
On Friday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order "with the goal of establishing an exclusive window for the Army-Navy Game, during which no other college football game is broadcast."
NEW: President Trump issues an executive order to "with the goal of establishing an exclusive window for the Army-Navy Game, during which no other college football game is broadcast." More here: https://t.co/kyam4TJEdR
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 20, 2026
The Army-Navy Game has been played in the week between the end of conference championship weekend and the start of the College Football Playoff. Typically, the game hasn't competed with any other games being broadcast, but that is potentially going to change in the future.
One of the biggest complaints about the expanded College Football Playoff format is how long the season drags on. This season, the National Championship Game was played on January 19th while next season the National Championship Game won't be played until January 25th which is far too late considering that the season starts in August.
College Football has several major issues with the current makeup of the calendar including how late the season runs. The Transfer Portal currently opens during the Playoff which leads to players leaving their current teams along with coaches like Lane Kiffin being pressured to make a decision on their future before the season even ends.
If Army Navy has an exclusive window for the game, it could present additional road blocks to overcome with the calendar. Many have proposed moving the Playoff start up 1 week to the Army-Navy weekend which would lead to less breaks in the calendar.
Issues like College Football Playoff expansion now will pay close attention to what's decided with the Army-Navy game. Losing another weekend could lead to the Playoff sticking at 12 teams while we could even see proposals like eliminating weeks from the regular season or moving the start of the season up.