The packages are gone now from beneath the Christmas tree, which means the Georgia Bulldogs and Ohio State are on their way to Atlanta for the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Or, in the case of the Buckeyes, already here.
The No. 4-ranked Buckeyes (11-1), who will take on No. 1 Georgia (13-0) in the College Football Playoff semifinals on Saturday night ( 8 p.m., ESPN), won the first battle of Peach Bowl week by arriving first. They landed at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport at 5:30 p.m. Sunday and were scooped up and whisked off to their team hotel in a half-dozen coach buses wrapped in Ohio State and Peach Bowl graphics and insignia.
The Bulldogs are expected to bus in early Monday for the first of six days of activities surrounding the game. While these teams will face off to see which one advances to the Jan. 9 national championship in Los Angeles, the early part of the week will be treated very much like any other bowl game.
The Peach Bowl will conduct virtual arrival news conferences on Monday. Ohio State coach Ryan Day will take questions from reporters via video conference call at 2 p.m. Georgia coach Kirby Smart will follow at 3 p.m.
Both teams will be treated to a special tour of the College Football Hall of Fame Monday night. Ohio State will be there from 6:15 to 7 p.m. and the Bulldogs will get their turn at 8:30. In between both teams will gather together for the “Battle of Bowl Week” welcome dinner.
After in-person press conferences on Tuesday morning, the teams will make separate hospital visits on later in the day. Georgia will head to Scottish Rite and Ohio State will go to Egleston. Tuesday’s highlight is a joint visit to Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Martin Luther King was pastor. Former Atlanta mayor and U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young and former Alabama and Georgia Tech head coach Bill Curry will speak to the teams from the pulpit.
Wednesday’s itinerary is somewhat similar, with morning press conferences and evening outings. This time they’ll make separate trips out to Andretti Indoor Karting to race go-carts. In between, the teams will sneak in some practice to prepare for Saturday night’s primetime clash. There will be no bowl events the last two days of the week as the teams focus solely on that matchup.
Both teams, though, have been going at it for three weeks on their respective campuses. Both the Bulldogs and Buckeyes have described those sessions being similar in physical intensity to preseason camp.
“Coming off of a conference championship win, I feel we have worked harder than we did last year coming off of a loss,” Georgia senior wideout Kearis Jackson said last week. “It’s crazy because people look at it as we’re complacent, we’re happy. … But our season is not complete yet. We still have goals that we want to reach. The Peach Bowl is the next thing we want to accomplish.”
Ohio State feels like it has been granted the second chance of a lifetime after losing to Michigan 45-23 in the regular-season finale. Michigan (13-0) faces TCU (12-1) in the other semifinal at the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.
“I see a team that realizes that there aren’t a lot of people who have given us a chance,” coach Ryan Day told reporters before the Buckeyes’ broke camp. “They have played really hard in practice. I think there is a good look in our guys’ eyes. … We know what we’re in for. We know what the challenge is, and we’ve been working really hard toward it.”
While the teams turn their attention to practice the final couple of days, events will continue around town. The Peach Bowl will host former Bobby Dodd coach of the year award winners and National Football Foundation Hall of Fame inductees on Thursday and Friday nights. UGA alum and former NFL star of one of the 18 players elected Champ Bailey for induction into the College Football Hall of Fame and will attend a dinner in their honor Friday night at the Hall of Fame.
Former Georgia coach Mark Richt also is being inducted into the Peach Bowl Hall of Fame this year. He’ll miss Friday night’s dinner while covering the Orange Bowl for the ACC Network, but he’s flying in for Saturday’s game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and will be recognized there.
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