OXFORD — Gary Stokan Tuesday insisted he found out Ole Miss and Penn State would face off in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl at the same time viewers at home did.

The president and CEO of the Peach Bowl said he called College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock in the hours after the conference championship games had concluded, seeking assurances he’d know which two teams were Atlanta-bound before the announcement was made.

Stokan said Hancock laughed and told him, “‘You’ll find out when the rest of America finds out.’”

Regardless, Stokan said he considered the bowl “very blessed” to land Ole Miss (10-2) in a matchup against Penn State (10-2) on Dec. 30 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (11 a.m. CST, ESPN).

Stokan was in Oxford Tuesday to issue a formal invitation to Ole Miss.

“We feel we’re going to ascend on Atlanta and take over Atlanta,” Ole Miss athletics director Keith Carter said, while accepting the bowl’s invitation.

Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, speaking to the media for the first time since learning his team’s postseason destination, said he’s gotten a sense of excitement from his players since resuming practices earlier this week. Kiffin spent all of last week on the recruiting trail and/or entertaining official visitors.

“Now to be around our players, to have some practices, now that we know we’re playing in this, our players are so excited to be in this big of a bowl against an historic team to play in Penn State and in such a great city in Atlanta, where some of our kids are from,” Kiffin said. "I know the parents, too, from talking to them, are really excited to get there. This will be a tremendous matchup for us against a great coach and a great team with a lot of really good players.”

Kiffin said he and his staff haven’t done deep dives into the Nittany Lions just yet, but said the Rebels are “a little more familiar. We’re still not into game-planning with our players yet because we’re so far out from the game.”

It’s been a busy time for Kiffin and his staff. Not only do they have a bowl game to prepare for, one that would give Ole Miss 11 wins in a season for the first time in program history, but they’re working an open NCAA Transfer Portal window and recruiting players currently on the Rebels’ roster, whether it be to push their NFL dreams back one more season or to stay out of the portal themselves.

“This is a new era of college football,” Kiffin said. “There’s no model to look after. The NFL would never have this set-up.

“I’m very pleased with how many guys came back — a lot of ‘tweener guys who went back and forth but may not have (received draft grades) as high as they’d like. So it’s really neat that they feel that way about the program and the locker room that they would choose to come back.”

Kiffin said he has a pretty good idea at this point about who might opt out of the game and who might still decide to return for next season.

“I think the majority of the guys who are going to the NFL or coming back have decided,” Kiffin said. “That’s for the them to tell. I’ve kind of screwed that up before.”

Kiffin said he’s looking for “best available” players in the transfer portal, in part because there are still opportunities for players on his roster — and other rosters — to leave via the portal, whether it it be in the current portal window or in May, when the portal opens again for 15 days.