For only the second time in the 54-year history of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, the annual Atlanta event will be played without a team from the South.
The pairing of Michigan State (10-2) and Pittsburgh (11-2) for the Dec. 30 game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium reflects the bowl’s metamorphosis from a generally regional matchup into part of the national College Football Playoff apparatus. The pairing also could pose challenges in attempting to fill a 72,000-seat stadium here.
In welcoming the teams’ coaches on a video call, Peach Bowl Inc. CEO Gary Stokan said: “We’re really excited and pumped to have this game … with two teams from the North that we’re going to be hosting in the South with our great Southern hospitality.”
The only previous time the Peach Bowl was played without at least one team from the South was a cold, rainy game between Army and Illinois in 1985 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium.
On scattered other occasions through the years, the bowl has featured distant teams – such as Arizona State (1970), Iowa State (1977), Iowa (1982 and 1988), Syracuse (1989), Washington (2016) and Michigan (2018) -- but in those cases the opponent was from Georgia or a bordering state.
This year is a propitious time to host two teams from outside the region, Stokan said, because they’ll help an Atlanta hotel industry hard-hit by COVID-19. While fans of nearby schools – say, an Auburn or a Clemson – drive in and out of Atlanta for games in large numbers, fans of more distant schools tend to spend a couple of nights when they travel here.
“One of the great things about bringing in teams from around the country is that it really helps our tourism industry, especially in this day and time where COVID has wiped out so many conventions,” Stokan said.
From 1992 through 2013, the Peach Bowl was contractually ensured of matching an SEC team against an ACC team. For all 22 of those seasons, the game included at least one team – sometimes two --from Georgia or bordering states. Sellouts became almost automatic.
But the Peach also was a second-tier bowl during that time, not part of the Bowl Championship Series that preceded the College Football Playoff as the method of determining the national championship.
Starting with the 2014 season, the Peach Bowl ceded its authority over picking its teams to the CFP selection committee. The Peach joined the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton and Fiesta bowls as rotating hosts of playoff semifinals, each hosting a semi once every three years. In the other years, such as this one, the Peach isn’t a playoff game but nevertheless has its matchup set by the CFP committee, generally from teams ranked in the committee’s top 12.
That’s how the Michigan State-Pitt pairing came together.
After the top four teams were placed in the playoff semifinals – No. 1 Alabama versus No. 4 Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl and No. 2 Michigan versus No. 3 Georgia in the Orange Bowl – two bowls with conference tie-ins set their pairings: No. 6 Ohio State against No. 11 Utah in the Rose Bowl and No. 7 Baylor against No. 8 Mississippi in the Sugar Bowl. That left the CFP committee to place the remaining “Power Five” conference champion (Pittsburgh, which won the ACC for the first time since joining the expanded league in 2013) and the remaining top-12 teams (Notre Dame, Oklahoma State and Michigan State) in the Fiesta and Peach bowls.
“We talked a lot of about what (was) the best way to (pair those teams),” committee chairman Gary Barta said, “and we felt strongly that the most fair way to go forward was to use our rankings as the determination. We went in order of the way that they were ranked. Notre Dame was at five, Oklahoma State was at nine, so those two were paired together. Michigan State was 10 and Pittsburgh was 12, so those two were paired together.”
The next issue was deciding which of those matchups would be assigned to the Peach Bowl and which to the Fiesta. Although all four schools are closer to Atlanta than to the Phoenix area, the committee decided to place the game involving the farther-west teams (Oklahoma State-Notre Dame) in the Fiesta and the game involving the farther-east teams (Pittsburgh-Michigan State) in the Peach, Barta said.
The Peach Bowl has gotten many benefits, Stokan said, from being one of the CFP-affiliated “New Year’s Six” bowls since 2014. He cited “increased status,” larger TV viewership and larger economic impact because of the aforementioned longer hotel stays.
“It has been a win-win-win across the board for us,” Stokan said. “For the old Peach Bowl ... to be mentioned in the same sentence with the Rose, Sugar, Cotton, Orange and Fiesta, ‘we’ve come a long way, baby.’”
Before this season’s matchup was set, the Peach Bowl had sold all but 2,000 of the 40,000 tickets available locally each year, Stokan said. Prices ranged from $125 to $550. Some local buyers are motivated to renew their tickets each year to ensure access when the bowl hosts a playoff semifinal.
Some of the tickets sold for this year’s game have found their way to the secondary market for resale at reduced prices. As of Friday, tickets were available on StubHub for as low as $24 (plus fees) in the upper-level end-zone corners and from about $200 to more than $1,000 in the lower-bowl club sections.
Michigan State and Pittsburgh, both making their first appearances in the Peach Bowl, received allotments of 13,000 tickets each; the schools are responsible for buying any tickets they don’t sell to fans. In addition, Mercedes-Benz Stadium handles sales of about 5,000 seats in suites and loges. Stokan predicted total attendance will wind up being “somewhere in the 60,000s.”
“Our fans will be very excited to be in a big-time bowl game, and they’ll show up strong in Atlanta,” said Michigan State coach Mel Tucker, a former Georgia defensive coordinator. “Our fans travel well.”
Pittsburgh coach Pat Narduzzi said the turnout of Panthers fans was “outstanding” at the ACC Championship game, which drew 57,856 in Charlotte, and “you’re going to see (that) again in Atlanta.”
Next season, the Peach Bowl will host a College Football Playoff semifinal for the third time.
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