Peach Bowl CEO hopes Penn State makes its 1st postseason appearance in Atlanta

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Nov. 27—These are exciting and tense times for Gary Stokan and other chief executive officers of college football bowl games.

Stokan, the CEO of the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl, and the others will find out Sunday which two teams will be coming to their cities in late December and early January.

He compares it to the week leading up to Christmas.

“It’s exhilarating and exhausting,” Stokan said Monday. “We have no say-so, zero say-so, with being part of the College Football Playoff for the last 10 years. We literally sit there Sunday like everybody else waiting for ESPN to put the two teams up there under the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl.

“That’s our Christmas presents. You have to wait. That’s the exhaustive side of it. Yet it’s exhilarating as well.”

Stokan is a Pittsburgh-area native who has been in charge of the Peach Bowl for 26 years. The Atlanta-based game began in 1968 but has never had Penn State as one of its teams. He said he hopes that changes this year.

“We’d be overjoyed if we’d get Penn State,” Stokan said. “The Penn State brand is one of the best brands in college football. To be able to put 110,000 people in the seats on a weekly basis makes them one of the best fan bases in the country.

“(Coach) James Franklin is a first-class guy, a quality guy. I know James. He does a great job and is a quality person.”

The Peach Bowl, which is at noon Dec. 30 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, is one of the potential bowl destinations for the 10th-ranked Nittany Lions (10-2), who finished the regular season with a 42-0 victory over Michigan State last Friday.

Penn State is in position to receive a berth in a New Year’s Six bowl. If that happens, the options also would include the Cotton Bowl on Dec. 29 in Arlington, Texas, and the Fiesta Bowl on Jan 1 in Glendale, Ariz.

The Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl are hosting CFP semifinals on Jan. 1,…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/peach-bowl-ceo-hopes-penn-045000891.html

Author : Reading Eagle, Pa.

Publish date : 2023-11-28 04:50:00

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