It's do-or-die time for Ohio State.
Tennessee
Volunteers
A 12-team College Football Playoff has offered the Buckeyes a shot at redemption after falling on their face in a humiliating rivalry loss. They start with the kind of matchup first envisioned with the new expanded format was unveiled: Ninth-seeded Tennessee will travel north to face eighth-seeded Ohio State on a cold December night in the Shoe.
"We've gotta fix the problems, but it's not gonna do us any good looking back on that," Ryan Day said of the Michigan loss and moving forward on Sunday. "We've got to learn from it and move on. The guys have a good look in their eye. We were up there at noon watching the selection show, there was a great energy up there. They want to play. They want to get back on the field and get a win."
The Volunteers could be a matchup headache for the Buckeyes with a game-wrecking crew on their defensive line and a star running back, but Tennessee isn't without flaws for Ohio State to exploit.
Elite Defensive Front
Ohio State's offensive line has struggled since a second starter from its original lineup, center Seth McLaughlin, suffered a season-ending injury ahead of the Indiana game in Week 13. The Buckeyes managed just four yards per carry against Indiana and three yards per carry in The Game as the Wolverines shut OSU's offense out in the second half.
Those concerns are what makes the Tennessee matchup perhaps the most frightening for Ohio State, because the Volunteers have one of the premier defensive lines in the country. Defensive end James Pearce Jr. was projected as a potential No. 1 overall NFL draft pick in 2025 during the offseason and is still drawing plenty of first-round projections with the regular season concluded.
Pearce has racked up 35 tackles with 11 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks in 2024. The Volunteers defensive tackle tandem of Bryson Eason and Omari Thomas weigh in at 310 and 325 pounds, respectively, and have a combined 12 TFLs in 2024. Led by its great defensive line play, Tennessee is eighth nationally in rushing yards allowed per game (99.6) and fourth in yards allowed per carry (2.8).
Tennessee also gets after the quarterback a good amount, ranked 41st in sacks with 29, but it's that run-game disruption that makes the Volunteers so dangerous up front. They're tied for ninth nationally with 93 tackles for loss this season. Be it scheme, personnel, development or likely some combination of the three, Ohio State needs to prevent the Volunteers' defensive line from taking over the game.
Strength of Sampson
Running back Dylan Sampson is the focal point of Tennessee's offense. (Credit: Steve Roberts – Imagn Images)
The biblical Samson is synonymous with strength. Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson has been synonymous with speed.
Carrying just 200 pounds on his 5-11 frame, Sampson's shiftiness and acceleration have gashed defenses to the tune of 1,485 rushing yards in 2024, the most in the SEC by almost 300 yards. He's done so at a clip of 5.8 yards per carry and collected 22 rushing touchdowns, which also leads the conference and is tied for fourth nationally.
As impressive as those raw numbers are, Sampson's consistency this season is equally laudable. He rushed for 100 yards in 10 of Tennessee's 12 regular-season games, and one of those in which he didn't was an 11-carry, 77-yard day against UTEP as he was removed early from the blowout win.
Sampson is coming in orange-hot off his best performance to date, a 25-carry, 178-yard gouging of Vanderbilt on the road in 41-degree weather to help lift the Vols to a 36-23 win. As the temperatures drop and even more emphasis goes on the ground game on Dec. 21, Sampson is a fantastic threat for Tennessee to have tucked in its toolbox.
Heupel's Disciples
It's been a long path back to national relevancy for Tennessee.
Rocky Top has a proud tradition with six claimed national titles, the last coming at the dawn of the BCS era in 1998. That's the same year your beloved writer of Five Things to Know was born. For my entire childhood, I viewed the Volunteers as a middling SEC team with a checkered end zone that I thought was cool, not the top-tier program they were in the prime years of former head coach Phillip Fulmer, who won that title.
In 2007, Tennessee went 10-4. It would be the Volunteers' last 10-win season for 15 years. Fulmer was fired after a 5-7 campaign in 2008, Derek Dooley came in and rattled off three straight losing years and Butch Jones didn't achieve much (other than some championships of life) in his five-year tenure either. Jeremy Pruitt followed in 2018, showed some promise in 2019 with an 8-5 record and a Gator Bowl win, then flopped to 3-7 in 2020 before getting canned amid an internal investigation into recruiting violations.
At last, enter Josh Heupel. After cutting his teeth as an offensive coordinator at several stops, Heupel went 28-8 across three years at UCF in his first head coaching gig before getting the nod from the Volunteers. He went 7-6 in year one, then turned Tennessee into the nation's highest-scoring team in 2022.
The Volunteers spent time at No. 1 in the College Football Playoff rankings that season after knocking off five ranked opponents, including No. 3 Alabama, before losing to eventual national champion Georgia and an unranked South Carolina squad and missing the playoffs at 10-2. The Orange and White responded with a win in the Orange Bowl over Clemson to cap easily their most successful season since the Fulmer days at 11-2.
Tennessee took a step back with a 9-4 record in 2023, but Heupel and his troops are now in the CFP for the first time in school history with a 10-2 mark. And though the Volunteers' offense isn't quite as prolific as it was two years ago (No. 8 in scoring with 37.2 points per game), he still holds a reputation as an excellent offensive mind.
"Very innovative coach," Day said. "I think the quarterback has a strong arm, running back is excellent. I think he was All-SEC and runs low to the ground. They spread you out and try to create space issues for you. I think the receivers, some big ones, there's some quick guys in there. They're talented, and so they try to put as much stress on you, especially with the space and the tempo. So we've gotta be prepared to play fast in this game."
Aerial Inconsistencies
For all the strengths Tennessee holds as a team, the Volunteers have looked vulnerable in a lot of their games this season. One major reason why is the inconsistency of their passing game and redshirt freshman quarterback Nico Iamaleava.
Iamaleava's stats on the year aren't bad as he's completed 65.7% of his throws for 2,512 yards and 19 touchdowns with five interceptions. But there have been several games where Tennessee's passing offense held it back. The Volunteers' 19-14 loss at Arkansas, easily the biggest blemish on their résumé, is a prime example of this, as Iamaleava went just 17-of-29 (58.6%) for 158 yards and no touchdowns. That's a meager 5.4 yards per pass attempt. It also didn't help that he was sacked four times.
Tennessee is just 62nd nationally in passing yards per game with 230.9. The Volunteers failed to reach 200 passing yards not just in their two losses but also in tight one-score victories over Florida and Alabama. Their offensive line has surrendered 26 sacks this season, which ranks 71st nationally.
Ohio State's second-ranked pass defense (144.3 passing yards allowed per game) might like the matchup if the Buckeyes can bottle up Sampson on the ground. Iamaleava is also a threat with his legs, having collected 311 rushing yards this season.
Red Zone Regressions
Even with limited total passing production, Tennessee's remained modestly efficient through the air with 8.1 yards per pass attempt, 27th-best in the country. The Volunteers are also modestly efficient on the ground, 26th with 5.1 yards per carry.
Those efficiencies haven't paid off inside the opposing 20-yard line, however. Tennessee is 89th in red zone scoring percentage, failing to come away with points on 11 of its 60 red zone trips this year. Its red zone touchdown percentage of 61.7% ranks 65th.
This is an area where Ohio State's defense can take advantage. The Buckeyes have allowed points on only 55.2% of opposing red zone drives, good for second-best in the country. Their touchdown percentage of 34.5% leads the country by more than five percentage points.
Four – or certainly seven – points disallowed on a Tennessee red zone drive could absolutely be the difference in a potentially low-scoring December CFP game.
