Peach Bowl president and CEO, Gary Stokan, joined UGA Wire via the ‘UGA Football Live with J.C. Shelton’ podcast this week to talk about this year’s College Football Playoff semifinal game in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
If Georgia beats LSU this weekend in the SEC Championship Game and finishes as the No. 1 team in the nation heading into the CFP, the Bulldogs will make their first Peach Bowl playoff appearance.
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The home-town Bulldogs are familiar with the trip to Atlanta for SEC championships, as well as this year’s season opener in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game versus Oregon.
On what the game means to the state of Georgia and the city of Atlanta:
“Atlanta is the fourth largest convention town in the United States, only behind Orlando, Chicago and Las Vegas, not necessarily in that order. And to be the fourth largest convention town and to have, this year, four of the six largest conventions be college football games – Two Chick-fil-A kickoff games, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and the SEC championship – That’s how important college football is to Atlanta.”
“That’s one of the reasons they call us the capital of college football with the College Football Hall of Fame here and soon to have the national championship in 2025 here and another semifinal and 2025. We’ve got some great games coming up along with our Clemson Georgia Chick-fil-A kickoff game to open up the 2024 season.”
On what it means for Georgia football to have an opportunity to appear in a playoff game in its home state:
“If the season, like you said, were to end today, we’d have No. 1 Georgia against probably No. 4 USC tonight. It’s great to have Georgia. I know that Kirby and Georgia is trying to make this a December to remember with winning the SEC championship and then coming in and winning the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl if they were to play in it in the semi final here.”
“It was great to have Georgia and Georgia Tech in our Chick-fil-A kickoff games as we always want to support our local teams. But to have a semifinal game is really special to the all the whole of college football. A