Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl officials won’t know until Dec. 4 which two teams will come to Atlanta to play in this season’s game. But chances appear good that one of them will be the nation’s top-ranked team.
As the site of a College Football Playoff semifinal this season, the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl will match either the selection committee’s Nos. 1 and 4 teams or its Nos. 2 and 3 teams. The odds favor a 1 vs. 4 matchup here since the committee’s criteria, as described by playoff executive director Bill Hancock during a visit to Atlanta on Wednesday, indicate the top-ranked team typically would play in the semifinal closest to its campus.
With this season’s other semifinal in the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., a No. 1-ranked team from the SEC, ACC or even Big Ten likely would be Atlanta-bound.
“We looked at the top 10 teams, and every one of them with the exception of Washington (No. 5 in this week’s Associated Press and coaches’ polls) is closer to Atlanta mileage-wise,” Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl president and CEO Gary Stokan said Wednesday.
The committee’s calculus could be a bit more complicated than simply checking the mileage, Hancock suggested, if there isn’t a dramatic difference in distance or if the No. 4 team would have a home-crowd advantage in the semifinal closest to the No. 1 team’s campus. But ordinarily, he said, “the No. 1 seed will drive where the semifinals go.”
He said the committee will finalize its ranking of the playoff teams before addressing the issue of where they’ll play.
“The committee will place the Nos. 1 and 2 teams at the most advantageous sites,” Hancock said. “The criteria are convenience of travel for the fans, home-crowd advantage or disadvantage, and then kind of a general familiarity with the city. The preference will go to the No. 1 team.”
That last sentence is the key.
The selection committee won’t make its first rankings of the season until Nov. 1. After that, the committee will release new rankings each week until announcing the four-team playoff field at noon on Dec. 4.
In this week’s playoff projection by a USA Today panel, Alabama is ranked No. 1, Ohio State No. 2, Clemson No. 3 and Washington No. 4. If the selection committee were to rank the teams that way entering the playoff, the semifinal matchups would be Alabama vs. Washington in the Peach Bowl and Ohio State vs. Clemson in the Fiesta, based on the criteria for assigning sites.
“We could possibly have Alabama in the Peach Bowl for the first time in our 49-year history,” Stokan said.
Then he added: “We’re excited to have anybody just to be part of the national semifinal game.”
The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl and Fiesta winners will meet in Tampa, Fla., in the national championship game on Jan. 9.
This marks the third season of the College Football Playoff and the first season that the Peach Bowl will host a national semifinal.
Bowl officials are proudly calling the New Year’s Eve game at the Georgia Dome the most significant college football game ever played in Atlanta. An even bigger game will be played here next season, when the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium will be the site of college football’s national championship game on Jan. 8, 2018.
Hancock, based in Dallas, is in Atlanta this week for a series of meetings to check on preparations for both events.
“Atlanta is ready,” Hancock said. “Atlanta has had a lot of spotlight moments, but never a spotlight moment like this in college football. Atlanta will do a great job with these events. It has all the tools and the people to operate the tools.”
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