Smart, Day differing thoughts on Atlanta’s advantage for Bulldogs
COVER PHOTO: Ohio State head coach Ryan Day (left) and Georgia head coach Kirby Smart (right) pose for a photo in front of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl trophy during a joint press conference on Dec. 30. Photo by Marvin Gentry/Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Georgia head coach Kirby Smart doesn’t feel like Saturday night’s Peach Bowl in Atlanta against No. 4 Ohio State (11-1, 8-1) will be a home game for his No. 1 Bulldogs.
“It’s home as in it’s in the state of Georgia … and 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 we play on. But the (Ohio State) fan base will turn out,” Smart said during a joint coach press conference on Dec. 4.
Athens is where the Bulldogs (13-0, 9-0) call home and it’s a mere 70 miles and a little over an hour to the east from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, where one of this year’s FBS college football playoff semifinals is being hosted.
Buckeyes head coach Ryan Day feels a little differently than Smart considering Columbus, Ohio is over 560 miles and nearly nine hours away.
“You’re playing the defending national champions in their backyard so it’s going to take everything we have to go on the road to win this game.”
Atlanta as well as Mercedes-Benz Stadium is no stranger to the Bulldogs. Saturday’s semifinal will mark the ninth time they have played in the same spot as the Atlanta Falcons and will be the third time this year they’ll have played a game there. Georgia’s first and last games of this season were there as they crushed Oregon, 49-3, in the season-opener on Sept. 3 and then defeated LSU, 50-30, in the SEC championship game on Dec. 3.
This will also be the Bulldogs’ seventh Peach Bowl appearance dating back to 1973 when the game was played in the old Georgia Dome. Their record in Mercedes-Benz is 4-4 with one of those wins coming in the 2021 Peach Bowl against Cincinnati.
However, this is the first time Ohio State has ever played a game in the state of Georgia.
Smart said it feels great for his team to be able to play so close to home but knows that Buckeye Nation will be out in full force to support the Scarlet and Gray.
“Ohio State, as I understand it, has never had a shortage of alumni base or money and I should know because I go against Ryan all the time in recruiting so I know how strong their alumni base is and how proud they are of it.”
He might have a point.
When tickets went on sale on Dec. 5, it took only two days for OSU to sell out of the 12,500 seats allotted specifically to Buckeye fans. Both teams were allotted the same number of seats in the 75,000 seat stadium.
Peach Bowl CEO Gary Stokan said in a press conference on Dec. 13 that they’re looking to add more seats as he and his committee are expecting anywhere between 78,000 and 79,000 to jam the joint to standing-room-only capacity.
“I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of Buckeyes in the stadium and around the stadium as well,” he said.
There will probably be a tremendous amount of Bulldog fans, too, as they also sold out their allotment within two days.
Stokan said this game could possibly break the current attendance record of 78,347 which was set in the 2019 Peach Bowl semifinal between LSU and Oklahoma.
Buckeye fans are certainly more amped up for this one than last year’s Rose Bowl against Utah. Given 20,000 tickets, the university gave back 7,000. Granted, that’s 13,000 tickets sold for each game but that’s not including the almost 50,000 more seats being sold to additional fans. And that has to be music to Day’s ears after seeing the lack of Buckeye supporters in Pasadena.
“Certainly I know that it’s in Georgia’s backyard but what an unbelievable opportunity to go play in an electric atmosphere. When you get to this point in the season, you know, this is what you’re going to do, you’re going to be in these types of environments and if you said at the beginning of the year you’re going to get the chance to be in the CFP and play in Atlanta against Georgia down there, the defending national champs, of course, you’d cut off your right arm for this opportunity.”
What may not be music to Day, though, is if Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald and his report of the ticket selling website TickPick is correct. In an article on Dec. 30, Weiszer said TickPick claims 44 percent of their sales have come from Georgia zip codes while only 17 percent are from Ohio.
Kickoff is slated for 8:15 p.m. ET and will air on ESPN.