As the Peach Bowl president and CEO, Gary Stokan has kept a close eye on the college football landscape since he took over the role in 1998. This season is no different and while he’s based out of Atlanta, he remains well-versed in what’s happening on the West Coast, including the successful start to the season for Pac-12 Conference teams such as USC and UCLA.
While No. 16 UCLA no longer has a realistic chance at earning one of the four spots to compete in the College Football Playoff, the Bruins could play spoiler at the Rose Bowl this weekend and knock No. 7 USC out of the playoff conversation as well. If the Trojans can win out and ascend to one of the top four spots in the playoff committee’s rankings, they could play in the Peach Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31.
Below are Stokan’s comments during an interview with the Southern California News Group:
Q: UCLA is no longer in the mix for the College Football Playoffs but USC still has a chance. What are your initial thoughts on those teams being in the playoff conversation at this point in the season?
A: It’s great to see teams like USC, UCLA and Oregon back in the mix. As well as Tennessee and some of the newer teams back in the mix that had been there before and joined teams like Michigan, Ohio State, Clemson and Georgia and Alabama. College football is only the second most favorite sport in the country, only behind the NFL. We are stronger when there are teams east to west and north to south. So again, I’m glad to see USC and UCLA back in the mix.
Chip Kelly and Lincoln (Riley) have done a great job this year. Obviously, USC being in the top 10 still has a possibility to be the Pac-12 champ and potentially, based on the CFP selection committee, has a chance as a champion of the Pac-12 and if they were to win with only one loss to a good Utah team, they would have to be considered (for the Peach Bowl and the playoffs) I would think.
Q: When the Peach Bowl has featured the No. 1 vs. No. 4 seed in the two years it was a semifinal playoff game, how is that decided and could that be the case again this year?
A: “The Peach Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl will be the two hosts for the semifinal games for the CFP this year and the CFP selection committee when they rank their teams, the only preferential treatment they give to the team that is No. 1 is that they will place them geographically advantage-wise for their fans in the bowl that is closest to them.
I’ll give you an example: If the season ended today, Georgia would be No. 1 so the game would be in Atlanta (for the Peach Bowl) but if it were UCLA or USC that was No. 1 then they would put them in the Fiesta Bowl.
In those years, we had Alabama at No. 1 in 2016 and LSU, who was No. 1 in 2019. This will be the third time we host a semifinal.
Q: Do you find yourself rooting for the Peach Bowl winner in the national championship game?
A: I never really thought about that. I have a lot of friends in the business after being in it for 25 years, so you root for friends more so than teams. I don’t know who will be in our games or what the situation will be, but there’s a fondness for the team that plays in our game that wins to go on and represent the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl well and win the national championship game.
Q: The Peach Bowl is slotted to host another semifinal game in 2025. Will that be changed at all if the playoffs are expanded by then?
A: The presidents have asked the commissions to look at moving the 12-team playoff forward to 2024 and 2025. In the case of successfully doing that, we would be a semifinal in 2025 and a quarterfinal in 2024. Atlanta would also host the national championship game after the ’24 season. That’s baked in no matter if they move forward with the playoffs or not under the existing contract. The only difference would be that in 2024 that if they move the playoffs forward we would be a quarterfinal. If they don’t, we would likely host two top-10 teams that year.
Q: Thoughts on playoff expansion and what role you might have in that process?
A: A lot of people think ‘we want a playoff, we want a playoff’ but in my estimation (for this season), I think the playoffs started a couple of weeks ago when No. 1 Tennesse played No. 3 Georgia. You had No. 6 Alabama play No. 10 LSU and you had No. 4 Clemson play unranked Notre Dame. You had No. 1, No. 4 and No. 6 all lose that weekend.
Even where you are now on the West Coast with the Pac-12, they put their schedule on the backside heavy up with Utah going to Oregon and UCLA playing USC and you still have the Pac-12 championship. Those are all like play-in games to get to the conference championship game and ultimately the Pac-12 champion should have the chance to be recognized and possibly be in the CFP semifinals.
Q: Thoughts on the success of the Pac-12 Conference and the parity of college football this season, especially when you have teams like Alabama and Clemson at the bottom half of the top 10 this season?
A: I’m impressed with the Pac-12 coaching changes that they’ve made from Dan Lanning (at Oregon) and Kalen DeBoer (at Washington). Both have been successful as assistant coaches and Coach DeBoer as a head coach in another division.
Also, with Chip Kelly, Lincoln Riley and Kyle Whittingham, there are some excellent coaches out there, that’s number one.
Number two, you start thinking about the players – DJ Uiagalelei (Clemson/St. John Bosco), C.J. Stroud (Ohio State/Rancho Cucamonga), Bryce Young (Alabama/Mater Dei), JT Daniels (West Virginia via Georgia, USC/Mater Dei) … all of those kids are California quarterbacks and so the more the Pac-12 can continue to be competitive the more the kids are going to want to stay on the West Coast because if you can compete for a national championship, that’s what kids want to do. They want to compete on big stages and in big games for championships. I think Washington, USC, Utah, UCLA and Oregon will all continue their success over the next period of time here and that’s good for the Pac-12 but also good for college football.
Q: How significant is it for you and the Chick-fil-A kickoff series (highlighting big games during the season’s opening week) to still have a game like Oregon vs Georgia still being important and carrying significant weight when evaluating Oregon’s resume the past couple of weeks when talking about the CFP rankings?
A: That’s a great point. We’re in Week 11 now and I haven’t checked on the TV ratings, but through Week 10 the Georiga-Oregon game was in the top 10 of all games after the first 10 weeks in viewership. You also look at LSU-Florida State and Ohio State-Notre Dame, which were also played in the first week, those are in the top five so that first week (of the season) people are dying to watch college football because they missed it for nine months and if you can put ranked teams together like Oregon and Georgia, then fans are going to be very interested in that. I would contend that the Oregon game against Georiga, even though Oregon didn’t fare well, you had a transfer quarterback in Bo Nix from Auburn and a first-year offensive coordinator and head coach there, most coaches will tell you that most teams improve from Week 1 to Week 2 and if you look at Oregon since that game, they were able to use that film against really good competition and coach their kids individually and collectively and look at the success they’ve had ever since. The same can be said for Notre Dame, losing to Ohio State but now look at some of the success they’ve had. You can also look at what Florida State and LSU have done since.
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Those first games are very important, not only in ratings but if Oregon beats Washington and they go on to win the Pac-12 championship and have just one loss against the No. 1 team in the country, I think they probably would’ve deserved consideration to be in the top four. That Georiga game would’ve been a “good loss” in the eyes of the CFP because they do commend and tell you that you have to play tough nonconference games to be selected in the final four. It was a tough loss for Oregon against that Washington team but if they would’ve won that game and went on to win the conference title game then that one loss would’ve been beneficial to Oregon.
Q: The Rose Bowl is big on tradition and that is something that is being reported as something holding up CFP expansion. What are some of the Peach Bowl’s traditions, and how much does that factor in when it comes down to potentially having to adjust for playoff expansion?
A: “We work really hard to be the most charitable bowl organization in the country. We’ve donated $60 million back since 2002, which makes us the No. 1 of all bowl organizations.
We use a theme: Live, laugh and learn. Where we want the teams to come in, live great, laugh and have fun but also learn.
We are going to put both teams in the pews at Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. (Martin Luther) King was the pastor and spoke from the pulpit and we are going to have Ambassador Andy Young, who was a part of the top eight people with Dr. King during the civil rights movement along with Bill Curry, who was a coach at Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia Tech and Georiga State and played for Vince Lombardi and Don Shula.