Ohio State Lives Up to “Leave No Doubt” Mantra in Dominant College Football Playoff Opener vs. Tennessee

Going into the 2024 season, Ryan Day repeatedly used a three-word mantra to describe the Ohio State football team’s mission for the season ahead: “Leave no doubt.”

“You have to leave no doubt,” Day said in the week leading up to Ohio State’s season opener when describing the team’s motto for the year. “It's like whether it's a prize fighter going down to either knock him out or leave it to the judges, you can't do that. So that's been something that we've talked a lot about … We have to do that. That's probably the one this year that we've grabbed onto the most.”

Ohio State didn’t always do that during the regular season, particularly in its final game of the regular season against Michigan, which left plenty of doubt about the Buckeyes’ ability to make a run in the College Football Playoff and even about whether Day would remain Ohio State’s coach in 2025. In the Buckeyes’ first game of the CFP, however, they fully brought that mantra to life.

The Buckeyes raced out to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter against Tennessee and never looked back, rolling to a 42-17 victory over the ninth-seeded Volunteers that firmly reestablished Ohio State as the national championship contender it was expected to be going into the season.

Had the game played out a different way, there were moments Ohio State would have been able to look back on – as there were plenty of after its one-point loss to Oregon and three-point loss to Michigan during the regular season – and wonder if those plays would have changed the game. A pass interference wasn’t called on Tennessee’s interception of Will Howard in the second quarter and a questionable roughing the passer penalty was called against Kenyatta Jackson Jr. on the Volunteers’ subsequent field-goal drive that nullified an interception by Davison Igbinosun.

Those moments sparked a 10-0 run for the Volunteers that allowed some doubt to resurface as to whether the Buckeyes would win Saturday night’s game. Had Tennessee proceeded to score on its opening drive of the second half, the Volunteers would have made it a one-score game and potentially dragged Ohio State into a four-quarter battle.

Instead, the Buckeyes forced a punt and proceeded to score on three straight possessions again for another 21-0 run, putting the game so far out of Tennessee’s reach that it was able to take its starters out of the game early in the fourth quarter and coast to a comfortable win.

“We knew coming out of the second half we had to win the next four or five minutes, and we did,” Day said after the game. “There was a couple calls and different things where in the past, when you have one of these games and it comes down to the last play, you look to those as game-altering plays. But when you leave no doubt, nobody will talk about those plays, because we did.”

Howard thought it was “huge” that the Buckeyes quickly pulled away in the second half rather than allowing the Volunteers to continue hanging around.

“I think we did a hell of a job not letting off the gas, because when it's 21-0, you know, 21-10 going into half, it's like, we could have let that go sideways. But the defense came out and got a huge stop, we go down and score, go down and score again, it's like, man, we left no doubt,” said Howard, who went 24-of-29 for 311 yards and two touchdowns. “And we could have let that become a game, but being able to go out there and continue to keep the foot on the pedal was huge.”

Ohio State entered its first-round CFP game with the opposite of momentum. For the past three weeks, most of the public conversation about the Buckeyes both locally and nationally centered around what went wrong against Michigan and what would happen if Ohio State lost to Tennessee, potentially including a coaching change if the Buckeyes fell to the Volunteers. The prospect of Ohio State falling short of its three major goals for the fourth year in a row garnered more discussion than the possibility of the Buckeyes still accomplishing their goal of winning a national championship.

That goal always remained on the table, though, and the Buckeyes never stopped believing in their ability to accomplish it. While they’re still a long way away from actually doing so, as they’ll have to win three more tough games starting with a rematch against No. 1 seed Oregon at the Rose Bowl, the Buckeyes’ dominant performance against the Volunteers showed the nation – and strengthened their belief in themselves – that they’re still capable of being the championship team many expected them to be when the season began.

“It had been a long week for us, a long couple of weeks, and to say it doesn't weigh on you, it does. We have a lot of pride in who we are, these guys have a lot of pride, and these guys, they love each other, and they're a great representation of Ohio State, and I'm glad that they were able to, for the last (home) game for those seniors, they were able to finish on a win. But they are not satisfied at all,” Day said. “They quickly are going to get their focus on Oregon, which is going to be a rematch for us, which is exciting, and going into a great opportunity to go play in the Rose Bowl. So I think it says a lot about who our guys are that we were able to respond like that in a big way.”