Ohio State’s first appearance in the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl also serves as a homecoming for Buckeye linebacker Steele Chambers.
Hailing from Roswell, Ga., which sits around a half-hour drive from Mercedes-Benz Stadium — the home of the Peach Bowl — Chambers said he was excited to get another opportunity to play in his home state.
“It’s been fun,” Chambers said. “It’s just been really nice having a close proximity to home, just having a lot of people from my family being able to come out to the game. They usually can’t. It’s just been nice.
“I think it’s just really nice being able to come home, play in a place that’s familiar to me before I got into college. I think that will be really fun.”
When the Buckeyes take the field against No. 1 Georgia on Saturday, in the College Football Playoff semi-final, it will not be the first time Chambers will take the field in a high-stakes game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. During his time at Blessed Trinity High School, Chambers played in a pair of state title games at the stadium, picking up a win as a junior and a loss in his final high school game.
While Chambers already has experience in high-level contests at the site of the Peach Bowl, he emphasized that those games pale in comparison to Saturday’s contest.
“My experience is like 50/50. We’ve lost one year, won another. But it’s going to be really fun,” Chambers said. “I think something for me that I take into account is that — it’s just a bigger stage. So I don’t really like to dwell on the games in the past because this is a lot bigger deal, honestly, to me and to all the guys around me.
“I try to forget about the past, just try to move forward, think about this game coming up as something bigger than what I’ve been used to in the past.”
Chambers has come a long way from his time splitting snaps between the offense and defense while at Blessed Trinity. Despite joining the Buckeyes as a running back in 2019, he has spent the last two seasons at linebacker — where he has blossomed alongside Tommy Eichenberg. Chambers racked up 69 tackles — six for loss — and 1 1/2 sacks this season.
While the Buckeyes return to the field for the first time in more than a month on Saturday, Chambers emphasized his excitement to get the opportunity to compete for a national title.
“It’s been a month since we’ve played. But you can tell even in practice everyone’s got a chip on their shoulder,” Chambers said. “Everyone’s been really serious as to what we plan on doing. So the last month of practice everyone’s been going at it full tilt. And I think you can really see this on Saturday.”