Georgia and Ohio State are two bluebloods who took different paths to the College Football Playoff.

The Bulldogs rolled through an undefeated regular season and claimed an SEC championship. The Buckeyes, meanwhile, suffered a 45-23 thrashing at the hands of archrival Michigan in the season finale. That defeat kept them out of the Big 10 Championship Game and put their CFP hopes in jeopardy.

But thanks to some chaos above them, Ohio State is back in the playoff and will face Georgia in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. It's not exactly the blueprint the Buckeyes envisioned, but that doesn't matter at this point to head coach Ryan Day.

"I just think we wanted to be in this situation, in the CFP, at the end of the year," Day said. "It took a different road to get here, but we’re here. So now, we’ve got to just do an unbelievable job this month of preparing and maximizing every day. That’s, in the end, what’s going to happen."

Day said the last week has been an emotional one for his players. But the energy picked up again in recent days culminated with "a lot of juice" when the players heard their name called during Sunday's selection show.

That mindset is different from that of the Georgia players, who have gone through the last couple of weeks with a playoff berth seemingly secured.

"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," Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said. "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 were a couple of times we got really close to getting in. But the excitement that provides and the energy, it’s a kick of momentum. We have to understand that and be able to match that."

The coming weeks will be vital for both teams as they manage the time off. Both Smart and Day have experience in managing this dead time, and they both said previous years will help in managing this season's layoff.

Like Georgia, Day said his team will work on fundamentals in the coming days before starting to dive into the Georgia game plan. Day said his staff looks at the Bulldogs and how they do things in the offseason, so they're already at least a little familiar with how the program operates.

It'll be a great challenge for the Buckeyes in Atlanta on New Year's Eve. But after how things looked a week ago, they're just happy for the opportunity.

"It’s going to take everything we have to go on the road and go win this game," Day said. "How we got here, at this point, I guess doesn’t really matter. Now that we’re here, it’s time to go play."