Atlanta wants to be known as the “college football capital.”
It’s putting in the work.
Saturday’s Peach Bowl, featuring No. 10 Penn State and No. 11 Ole Miss, will be the second in a series of high-profile games to be played at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
It started Dec. 2 with the SEC Championship between No. 1 Georgia and No. 8 Alabama. After the Peach Bowl, next year Mercedes-Benz Stadium has scheduled the Aflac Kickoff game between the Bulldogs and Clemson, who have combined to win four of the past seven national titles; the SEC Championship game; the Peach Bowl, which will be a quarterfinal in the College Football Playoff next year; and then the CFP Championship game Jan. 20, 2025. Atlanta will be the first repeat host of the title game.
It keeps going.
The 2025 Labor Day weekend will see two Aflac games, Tennessee versus Syracuse and Virginia Tech versus South Carolina, followed by the SEC Championship game in December, and then the Peach Bowl will host a CFP semifinal.
If you’re counting, that’s 10 games in two years.
“It’s a pretty impressive stretch of college football games,” said Gary Stokan, the president of the Peach Bowl.
Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, who either has coached or been part of staffs that have played in various games in Atlanta, said he hasn’t really thought about the city being the “capital of college football,” but he understands why it could be.
“Tremendous amount of great players in the Atlanta area and in the state of Georgia,“ he said. “And this is a really cool stadium to play in, whether that’s been Kickoff Classics, whether that’s years ago (when he was) at Tennessee actually playing in this game, and at Alabama. I mean, this game is a playoff game. So it’s really neat to be part of it, to be here and to be in this big of a market.”
What is going to happen can be traced to the first Labor Day games, then called the Chick-fil-A Kickoff game. The Peach Bowl had been omitted from the quartet of bowl games included in the BCS when it started in 1999. Stokan wasn’t ready to give up on strengthening the brand of the Peach Bowl and the city’s sports reputation. When the NCAA voted in 2005 to expand the season to 12 games, Stokan came up with the idea to put a marquee game in the opening weekend.
He described it as the “Daytona 500 of college football” until he received a cease-and-desist letter from the speedway’s owners.
The first was played in 2008. Taking advantage of the city being at the crossroads of the SEC and ACC, it featured Alabama and Clemson. More than 70,000 tickets were sold.
ESPN televised the game. The network was so pleased that it asked Stokan if it was possible to do two games. In 2012, the first doubleheader was held. Tennessee played N.C. State. A day later, Clemson played Auburn. The two games resulted in more than 130,000 tickets sold. Doubleheaders were held again in 2014 and ‘17.
The success of those games, combined with the city’s experience hosting the SEC Championship game, the Peach Bowl and other big events, resulted in the Peach Bowl being added into the rotation of games within the College Football Playoff.
The Peach Bowl held its CFP semifinal in December 2016 and Atlanta had its first national title game in January 2018.
“I think all that wrapped together gave us a leg up to get into the CFP and changed the trajectory of the Peach Bowl forevermore in the capital of college football,” Stokan said.
PEACH BOWL
No. 10 Penn State vs. No. 11 Ole Miss at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Saturday, noon, ESPN, 680, 93.7
Peach Bowl essentials: Details on the parade, FanFest, transit options and the game
