The Ohio State football team has a daunting task in front of it, but one it sees as an unbelievable opportunity after most thought its season was dead with the crushing loss to Michigan during Thanksgiving weekend.
But now it gets real because Ohio State will match up with defending champion and No. 1 Georgia in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl in Atlanta. It took Georgia head coach Kirby Smart a few years to finally break through and win a national title, but now he’ has the Bulldogs at the top of the college football mountain.
Smart joined Ohio State head coach Ryan Day for the Chick-fil-A introductory coaches’ media conference on Sunday afternoon to discuss the matchup. Smart had a number of complimentary things to say about the Buckeye program that we’re able to bring to you.
Day echoed a lot of what he said in his presser in front of the Columbus media, but here’s everything Smart had to say when talking about the massive matchup with Ohio State.
Opening statement from Chick-fil-A Bowl reps
MATT GARVEY: I’d like to welcome everyone to the Selection Sunday press conference for the 2022 College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. Today we’ll be joined by two head coaches and Chick-Fil-A
CEO Gary Stokan. After opening statement, we’ll move right into questions
from the media.
At this time, we’ll go ahead and welcome head coach Ryan Day of the 4th ranked Ohio State Buckeyes and head coach Kirby Smart of the No. 1 ranked Georgia Bulldogs. We also have Gary Stokan, president and CEO of Peach
Bowl, Inc. Gary, why don’t you kick us off. I’m sure you have opening remarks for us.
GARY STOKAN: Thanks, Matt. I want to take the time to congratulate and welcome coach Smart and coach Day on making it into the College Football Playoff semifinals at the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. Kirby and Ryan, we look
forward to hosting you, your family, your team, the administration, the coaches, as well as the Buckeye and Bulldog families.
We will play Dec. 31 at 8 p.m. in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. We’ll be nationally televised on ESPN. The roof will be closed unless we open it around midnight and drop the peach, which is a tradition in Atlanta. We do want to welcome — we’re really ecstatic to have No. 1 against No. 4. This is the third time we’ve hosted the CFP semifinal, and each year we’ve been rewarded with the No. 1 team in the country: 2016 as well as 2019 and
now in 2022.
To have Georgia, the No. 2 scoring defense in the country, and Ohio State, the No. 2 scoring offense in the country, it will be a lot of fireworks on New Year’s Eve in Atlanta. Thanks so much coaches. We look forward to hosting you. We take great pride in our bowl game to make sure that our bowl week is a reward for the players. We use the theme live, laugh, and learn, and it’s very important to us to take care of the players. We’ll have a great time for both teams as they descend upon Atlanta either Christmas or the day afterwards.
On behalf of our board, staff, volunteers, our partners, stakeholders, we look forward to hosting in Atlanta, the capital of college football for this year’s CFP National Semifinal Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. Thanks, Matt.
Opening Statements from Georgia head coach Kirby Smart
KIRBY SMART: It’s an honor to see a lot of familiar faces. Spent a lot of time with Gary, having played as a player in the Peach Bowl twice and coached in it multiple times throughout my career. They do as good a job as anybody at entertaining the players and putting on a first class
event.
So thanks to the Peach Bowl. We look forward to being there. It’s always an awesome event. It’s grown from a long time ago being small to being one of the best there is in the business. So a lot of connection to the people and
the organization and the Peach Bowl.
A lot of respect for Ryan and Ohio State University. What a tremendous job he has consistently done year in and year out with that program. Just a lot of respect for the way they play the game. We’ve watched them, studied them in years past, off-seasons spoken to their staff members. Just always knew that an opportunity to play them would probably come along but not knowing when it would happen, and it came to fruition this year.
Got a lot of respect for a lot of their players we recruited and tried to sign, and I’ve enjoyed watching them mature and play for him and become really good football players.
But it should be an electric matchup, electric atmosphere. What a great venue to play it in. It’s really what college football is all about, these kids having an opportunity to play in a game like this.
On Smart's comments about studying Ohio State
KIRBY SMART: I haven’t studied them this season. In offseasons, we try to go out and watch the best teams in the country and what they do and try to get better at it.
Especially when you watch your own conference all year, you get to watch all your opponents, you see what they do, you want to go out of your league when you go in the off-season to study. We’ve always looked at Clemson,
Ohio State, looked across the country to find out how are people doing it really well and what are they doing it differently.
In the past we’ve seen they have elite players and tough, physical guys across the NFL, and it’s littered with Ohio State players. That’s been in the past. I haven’t been able to look at Ohio State so far this year.
On being on the Alabama staff in 2014 that played Ohio State and his memory of it
KIRBY SMART: Long day. It was a long day, and it was physical. I think it was Ezekiel Elliott, right? He shredded what was a pretty talented Alabama defense.
I just remember a lot of explosive plays back and forth. I can’t remember all the particulars, but I know they were very talented and very physical and played with a very obvious purpose.
On the impact of playing against players on Ohio State that Georgia also recruited
KIRBY SMART: It’s just a great game. It’s a great opportunity. Most of these kids, they all know each other.
They got recruited by the same schools. They went to the same All-Star games. They’re very familiar with each other.
We recruit across the country. Ohio State recruits across the country. So we both have players from all different areas. They’ve got players from the state of Georgia. We’ve got players from all over. It makes for a great talent matchup. I know NFL teams really enjoy watching these kids go against each other. Just a lot of respect for the program and the way they play the game.
On opening the transfer portal opening date and the distraction it can cause
KIRBY SMART: I echo a lot of the same sentiments as Ryan. We try to build it where they want to be part of our program. If they don’t, then I certainly acknowledge that it’s an opportunity.
I think you’re asking also about I guess maybe evaluating kids in the portal. We went a year where we didn’t take one. So you’re always going to look, and people try to reach out once they go in the portal. It’s there. They have
people on staff at Ohio State, and we’ve got people on our staff that are going to be constantly looking through there and watching tape, evaluating it.
But the focus is on our team. It wouldn’t be fair to all the guys playing if you weren’t focused on your team. So you can’t put a ton of focus and attention to looking for kids in the portal and things like that.
For us, it’s really about who do we know? Who do we trust? Who do we think fits our culture? And find the right people. But our focus will be on ourselves.
On playing in a stadium Georgia is very familiar with and just played in
KIRBY SMART: I certainly think it’s great to be in Atlanta. It fell that way because in the rotation it was Atlanta’s year. We certainly have gone and played in the Rose Bowl out in California, and we’ve also been to Miami to play in semifinals. I know Ohio State has been all over as well.
Once you get to the venue, it’s different than when you’re coming in for a game and kids have been in classes and they just fly in for the game. It’s different when you’re there for a whole week. We’ll practice at Mercedes-Benz. They’ll practice at Mercedes-Benz. It’s not like you’re going to
walk in there and not have seen the place.
The field is the exact same length as any other field we play them on. The ticket sales, Ohio State, as I understand it, has never had a shortage of alumni base or money because I go against Ryan all the time in recruiting. I know how strong their alumni base is and how proud they are of it.
So I don’t look for it as — it’s home as in the state of Georgia, but the fan bases both turn out. They both have great fan bases, and I think that’s great for the Peach Bowl and great for the state of Georgia and Gary’s staff to have two programs of this magnitude playing in this game.
On balancing practice, days off, and all that goes along with the layoff and upcoming game
KIRBY SMART: A lot of the same things Ryan just reiterated. The management of the schedule is critical. I think having been a part of it and done it multiple years at Alabama and now at Georgia, it is so critical to your success how you manage that time. Not us as coaches, but how these players manage this time.
I also think the mindset and the framework you approach it with, there’s certainly a mindset to it. I told our team today that last year’s team in that same meeting had a different frame of mind than maybe our team right now does. That’s so critical, how you manage the next month and how we as coaches manage it and how the players manage it.
With Ohio State, there’s a breath of fresh air of opportunity. We’ve never had the fortune of saying, all right, we were out, and then we got back in. There was a couple times we got really close to getting in, but the excitement that
provides and the energy, it’s like it’s a kick of momentum that we have to understand that and we have to be able to match that and understand that there’s a piece of that that you’ve got to know.
But managing the 27 days is just critical. Sometimes your guys think 27 days is a long time, and then it’s right up on you before you know it.
On taking guys in the transfer portal
KIRBY SMART: A lot of the same sentiments (as Day). There’s kids on that team last night that they earned it and it was hard. Stetson talked about it. He’s like it’s hard to play here. Chris Smith, it’s hard to play here. Kenny McIntosh, the amount of time he waited, it’s hard.
We’ve had successful guys come from the portal, and we’ll continue to utilize the portal. It would be foolish to think that you could be successful in college football and not evaluate and look through the portal. But you have to be smart what you bring into your program, especially if you want to keep a dynamic, the culture we like to keep.
I want to be sure you understand I’m not saying that we don’t recruit the portal. I’m saying that we just did not have anyone last year that we got. We certainly are always going to look and shape it and make sure kids fit our
culture.
That’s why to me it’s so critical now in recruiting to evaluate more players because you may get the guy on rebound, and you’d better know a better history than just what somebody calls and tells you about him. I want to know when they came on the visit. I want to know when we talked to them. I want to know when they came to our camp.
I’m a lot more likely to take a kid that I think is wired the right way even though he’s coming from the portal, but I’d better have known about him coming out of high school.
Closing statements from the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl representatives
MATT GARVEY: With that, coaches, we thank you very much for your time. Members of the media, we thank you for being on the call. Coaches, welcome to the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl semifinal.
We can’t wait to get you into town and give you both a first-class experience, not only for you but for your players and your fans as well. We’re all looking forward to it, and we can’t wait for you to get here.
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