Ohio State and Tennessee are football blue bloods with long histories of excellence.

But the Buckeyes and Volunteers, who face off Saturday in the first round of the College Football Playoff, have played only once.

Ohio State record vs. Tennessee

The Buckeyes and Volunteers played in the 1996 Florida Citrus Bowl in Orlando. Ohio State was 11-1 entering the game while Tennessee was 10-1. The teams were both ranked No. 4 nationally heading into the game,

Tennessee won 20-14 in front of 70,797 rain-soaked fans..

Future Pro Football Hall of Famer Peyton Manning was the Tennessee quarterback and had a relatively quiet day. He threw for only 182 yards, including a 47-yard touchdown.

Ohio State tied the game on a 32-yard pass from Bobby Hoying to tight end Rickey Dudley in the fourth quarter. But Jeff Hall kicked two short field goals for the final points. Volunteers running back Jay Graham ran for 154 yards – 69 on a second-quarter touchdown – to earn MVP honors.

OSU’s Heisman Trophy-winner Eddie George ran for 101 yards and a touchdown.

Did Tennessee cheat against Ohio State?

Don’t be surprised if Eddie George shows up at the Tennessee-Ohio State game with a measuring stick and asking to see the Vols’ cleats.

That’s because at the end of the 1995 season, George’s senior year at Ohio State, the Buckeyes faced Tennessee on New Year’s Day in the Citrus Bowl on a rain-soaked field. The slippery surface led to 19 Vols players opting to wear soccer shoes with cleats longer than the NCAA allowed.

Did the longer cleats make a difference? Who knows, but the sure-footed Vols stopped Ohio State with just over five minutes left on a fourth-and-inches at midfield, with the Buckeyes trailing 17-14. Tennessee held on for a 20-14 victory.

George, who went on to become the Tennessee Titans’ all-time leading rusher and is now the coach at Tennessee State, laughs today when asked about the cleats and the edge the Vols — who admitted to wearing the illegal shoes — tried to gain in that game. But he doesn’t believe the cleats made a difference.

“I would never use that as an excuse. They beat us fair and square,” said George, who rushed for 1,927 yards that season and won the Heisman Trophy. “It was what it was. We’ve talked about it and laughed about it a few times over the years. (Former Vols receiver) Joey Kent was on our (Oilers/Titans) team and I got a chance to talk with him about it. It’s an ongoing joke.”

On that critical fourth down, George never got the chance to make a difference. The Buckeyes were not an option team, but tried to catch the Vols off guard by running an option to get the ball to George on the outside.

Instead, quarterback Bobby Hoying’s errant pitch bounced off the helmet of fullback Matt Calhoun — George’s lead blocker — and was recovered by defensive back Tori Noel.

“It was really hard for us to get going because of the rain,” George said. “Tennessee did a nice job defensively of limiting our explosive runs and passes. They really shut down our run game in the middle.”

−Mike Organ, Nashville Tennessean

When does Ohio State play Tennessee in CFP?

The Buckeyes (10-2) will face Tennessee (10-2) on Saturday, Dec. 21.

What time Ohio State plays Tennessee in CFP

The Buckeyes and Tennessee will play at 8 p.m. Dec. 21.

Where is Ohio State vs. Tennessee?

Ohio State will face Tennessee at Ohio Stadium.

This will be the first game played in December in the 102-year history of the stadium.

Ohio State vs. Tennessee predictions

From Joey Kaufman of The Dispatch:

Ohio State 30, Tennessee 24

The early feeling here is that the Buckeyes recover from a tough loss to rival Michigan and bounce back for the playoff as they did two years ago with a near upset of Georgia, the eventual national champion, in its backyard. Tennessee is formidable with a fast-paced offensive attack led by Dylan Sampson, the Southeastern Conference’s leading rusher, but it hasn’t been as explosive as Josh Heupel’s more recent teams with a first-year starting quarterback in Nico Iamaleava, a redshirt freshman. Look Jim Knowles’ side of the ball to get enough stops in a tight win for Ohio State.

From Rob Oller of The Dispatch:

Ohio State 24, Tennessee 20

Call me a sucker for a good comeback story, and Ohio State coming back from that mess against Michigan would be quite the rally cap moment. Tennessee’s strength is its defensive front — uh-oh — but I have to believe, er, choose to believe that Ryan Day and Chip Kelly have learned their lesson and will throw the ball to set up the run. The No. 8 Buckeyes’ defense will be just good enough to win the day, sending OSU to a rematch against No. 1 Oregon in the Rose Bowl. 

From Paul Myerberg of USA TODAY:

Ohio State over Tennessee

This is the premier pairing of the opening round and a nice barometer of how playoff games could unfold between the best of the best in the Big Ten and SEC. Given two evenly matched teams with similar traits, two factors will make the difference in Ohio State’s favor: homefield advantage and a more credible offense. Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard has more experience and better skill options. But another big game from Volunteers signal caller Nico Iamaleava could easily shift this game in the opposite direction.

Ohio State CFP predictions

To win the national title, the Buckeyes would need to win four games.

Their quarterfinal vs. Oregon would be at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1. The semifinals are the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl on Jan. 9 and 10. The championship game is in Atlanta on Jan. 20.

Here are Dispatch columnist Rob Oller’s predictions for the CFP:

First round:

• Ohio State over Tennessee
• Texas over Clemson
• Penn State over SMU
• Notre Dame over Indiana

Quarterfinals:

• Texas over Arizona State
• Ohio State over Oregon
• Penn State over Boise
• Georgia over Indiana

Semifinals:

• Texas over Ohio State
• Georgia over Penn State

Championship:

Texas over Georgia

Ohio State national title odds

Ohio State is the No. 4 betting favorite to win the CFP title, according to Bet MGM.

The Buckeyes are at +500 to win the national championship. Oregon and Texas, at +350, have the best odds, followed by Georgia at +400.

The Ducks, who handed Ohio State one of its two losses this season in a 32-31 thriller on October 12, are the lone remaining undefeated team in the FBS.

Ohio State vs. Tennessee odds

Ohio State is a 7.5-point favorite over Tennessee, by BetMGM.

Ohio State vs. Tennessee over/under

The over-under for the Ohio State-Tennessee game is 47.5, per BetMGM.

Ohio State vs. Tennessee tickets

Tickets for the Ohio State Tennessee game range from $263-$1,228.

Ticket prices for the Ohio State vs. Tennessee game in Columbus start at $285 on VividSeats, $271 on StubHub, $263 on Gametime and $291 on Seat Geek.

To see a full list of ticket prices, visit StubHub, VividSeats, Gametime and Seat Geek.

See Ohio State tickets prices for playoff game

When do Ohio State CFP tickets go on sale to the public?

General public tickets for Ohio State’s game against Tennessee on Dec. 21 sold out in minutes on Thursday morning.

CFP schedule

First round (Dec. 20-21)

No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Notre Dame, Friday, Dec. 20: 8 p.m. | ABC/ESPN

No. 11 SMU at No. 6 Penn State, Saturday, Dec. 21: 12 p.m. | TNT

No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas, Saturday, Dec. 21: 4 p.m. | TNT

No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State, Saturday, Dec. 21: 8 p.m. | ABC/ESPN

Quarterfinals (Dec. 31-Jan. 1)

Fiesta Bowl: No. 3 Boise State vs. No. 6 Penn State/No. 11 SMU winner, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 31 | ESPN

Peach Bowl: No. 4 Arizona State vs. No. 5 Texas/No. 12 Clemson winner, 1 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 1 | ESPN

Rose Bowl: No. 1 Oregon vs. No. 8 Ohio State/No. 9 Tennessee winner, 5 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 1 | ESPN

Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Georgia vs. No. 7 Notre Dame/No. 10 Indiana winner, 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 1 | ESPN

Semifinals (Jan. 9-10)

Orange Bowl: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 9 | ESPN

Cotton Bowl: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10 | ESPN

CFP National Championship

7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 20 | Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia | ESPN

What do Ohio State fans need to know about Tennessee?

Josh Heupel’s rebuild of Tennessee involved perimeter talent.

During the Volunteers’ breakthrough in 2022, few offenses in the nation were as explosive through the air.  The centerpiece was Jalin Hyatt, the Biletnikoff Award winner who stretched the field with his deep speed.

But the ninth-seeded Volunteers’ road to the expanded College Football Playoff, where they visit eight-seeded Ohio State for a first-round matchup on Dec. 21, has looked different.

Their primary playmaker is Dylan Sampson, a running back who was the leading rusher in the Southeastern Conference with 1,485 yards and 22 touchdowns this year.

It is the first time in four seasons under Heupel, a former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback at Oklahoma, that the Volunteers have averaged more yards rushing (232) than passing (231).

The Volunteers don’t have a receiver with more than 35 receptions. Hyatt caught 67 passes when he edged out Marvin Harrison Jr. for the Biletnikoff Award two years ago.

Sampson has been a workhorse back with 256 carries. Only nine in the Football Bowl Subdivision have totaled more in 2024. His role has helped to take the load off Nico Iamaleava, a redshirt freshman quarterback who has experienced growing pains at times in his first season behind center.

Between Hendon Hooker and Joe Milton, the Volunteers had relied on senior quarterbacks in previous season to push the ball down the field vertically.

With a 5-foot-11 frame that allows him to run low to the ground, Sampson is an elusive back. He has forced 70 missed tackles while rushing, a total that leaves him tied for fifth in the FBS, per Pro Football Focus, and grinds out yards. He has gained 927 after contact.

Tennessee’s formidability in the interior extends to the defensive side of the ball as it has the nation’s eighth-ranked rush defense, allowing just under 100 rushing yards per game.

James Pearce Jr. is a star along the Volunteers’ defensive line, leading them with 7.5 sacks and 11 tackles for loss.

“Their front is very good,” Buckeyes coach Ryan Day said, “on the edge and inside.”

The Volunteers allow only 13.9 points per game, ranking fourth nationally, and have only once allowed an opponent to score more than 30 points, coming in their 31-17 loss at Georgia last month.

They play at fast pace.  

Tennessee averages 24 seconds per play, the 21^st-fasted tempo in the FBS, a contrast to the Buckeyes’ competition in the Big Ten. Based on this measurement, Akron, averaging 26 seconds per play, ranking 57th, was the most up-tempo opponent that Ohio State saw during the regular season.

The Volunteers’ 888 plays are the 13^th-most as well.

As the Buckeyes began scouting Tennessee last week ahead of their potential matchup, it was apparent.

“They try to put stress on you with space and tempo,” Day said, “so we have to be prepared to play fast in this game. We’ve kind of started that process of what we’re going to do, getting lined up and making sure that our guys got their cleats in the dirt and go play football.”

−Joey Kaufman

What bowl games are in CFP?

The Fiesta Bowl, Peach Bowl, Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl will host quarterfinal games. The venues for this season’s semifinals are the Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl.

CFP game locations

The four on-campus first-round CFP games:

• Dec. 20: No. 10 Indiana at No. 7 Notre Dame | 8 p.m. | ABC/ESPN
• Dec. 21: No. 11 SMU at No. 6 Penn State | 12 p.m. | TNT/MAX
• Dec. 21: No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas | 4 p.m. | TNT/MAX
• Dec. 21: No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State | 8 p.m. | ABC/ESPN

Get more Ohio State football news by listening to our podcasts

Three women were found dead in an Ohio home over the weekend, and cops have opened a homicide probe into the grisly discovery, authorities say.

Officers reponding to a 911 call made the gruesome find in the Columbus residence Saturday afternoon.

Columbus Police Sgt. James Fuqua said the 911 caller reported their friends had been experiencing some sort of medical distress.

Upon making the grim discovery, cops established a crime scene for further investigation, and medics pronounced the three women dead at 4 p.m., according to 10TV.

A Columbus public-safety dispatcher initially told the outlet that the emergency call came in as a shooting report, but officers later said they were still investigating other causes of death for the victims.

“This time of year — anytime of the year — it’s unfortunate when someone loses their life, but particularly this time of the yea. Fuqua told the outlet. “During the holidays, it’s going to be very difficult for these victim’s families to come to the grips that these family members will no longer be in their lives.”

Cops are requesting anyone who might have information about the case to call the Columbus Police Homicide Unit at 614-645-4730 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS (8477). 

Fuqua could not be immediately reached by The Post on Sunday.

The apparent slayings occurred less than a week after a shooting Tuesday in the state’s capital, when a 45-year-old man was found in the yard of a local home suffering from a gunshot wound.

He was treated at a local hospital but succumbed to his injuries a day later.

This story is developing.

Nothing better shows how Ohio gets sold to the highest bidder – all nice and legal – than the antics of the state’s Oil and Gas Land Management Commission. The panel, despite overwhelming public opposition, but with the General Assembly’s lobby-lubricated support, lets oil-and-gas drillers frack under Ohio’s state parks and wildlife areas.

True, the drillers have to pay the state money for the right to do so. But it’s hard to imagine those payments could cover potentially costly environmental damages, if they occur, to Ohioans’ public property – their state lands.

Gov. Mike DeWine, a Cedarville Republican, appoints the commission, whose operating philosophy seems to echo 19th-century railroad mogul William H. Vanderbilt’s take on popular opinion – “The public be damned.”

The Oil and Gas Land Management Commission’s exploitation of what is, legally speaking, the property of all Ohioans has been eloquently reported by cleveland.com’s Jake Zuckerman.

An Ohioan has to wonder what public-relations alibi DeWine, who leaves office in two years, and Ohio’s dysfunctional legislature, will improvise when, as could happen, commission-approved fracking pollutes a state park or natural area.

DeWine’s predecessor, fellow Republican John R. Kasich, of Westerville, blocked fracking in state parks and natural areas. Kasich also tried boosting the severance tax on minerals and oil and gas produced in Ohio, but Republican legislators balked. Ohio’s laughably light severance tax on gas production is 2.5 cents per thousand cubic feet, and, on oil, 10 cents per barrel.

Fracking of state lands, and the accompanying risks, runs counter to the pro-conservation tradition that Ohio Republicans long embraced. Then-ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, addressing Ohio’s 1912 constitutional convention, said this: “This country, as Lincoln said, belongs to the people. So do the natural resources which make it rich.” Ohio voters OK’d a convention-proposed constitutional amendment empowering the General Assembly to promote conservation.

Convention Delegate Frederick G. Leete, an Ironton Republican and a civil engineer, described by regional historian Daniel Webster Williams, a Jackson editor and state senator, as “one of the acknowledged leaders of the [convention’s] conservation forces,” warned fellow delegates that they needed to protect Ohio’s forests and waters: “Capital is now seeking to acquire rights on a number of streams in the state,” Leete said, “and the people in the vicinity where such rights have been secured will wake up some day to the fact that they are at the mercy of some corporation.”

Especially sickening is that this story has played out before — of Appalachian Ohio being ravished by corporate interests, who, after gorging on Ohio-gleaned profits, leave the region to languish.

People who traverse Ohio’s Appalachian counties today sometimes wonder how the state could, say, let coal companies, transform fields and forests into strip-mined moonscapes. Easy: Coal barons donated bigtime to pals at the Statehouse. (In that connection, it’s believed that not until 1959 was anyone prosecuted for violating Ohio’s original 1913 lobbying law. The target: a lawyer-lobbyist whose client was Ohio’s coal industry. Big surprise.)

The economic “benefits” of such resource-exporting regions of Ohio are with us yet. The Center for Community Solutions in Cleveland reported last year that, “while the highest rates of poverty may be in Ohio’s cities, Appalachia accounts for the largest swaths, geographically, of the state living in high rates of poverty.” And while the center didn’t say so, that’s very likely a major consequence of the slash-and-burn economics of natural-resource extraction:

Go in; drill, scrape or mine; return to New York, Dallas, wherever. It was coal yesterday. It’s gas, today – risking lands reserved for all Ohioans’ enjoyment, including those who fish and hunt, that may be marred in the relentless search for private gain (and Statehouse donations).

As if the status quo weren’t bad enough, the Senate and House voted last week to pass initially innocuous Substitute House Bill 308 that – as rewritten by a Senate committee – requires the Land Management Commission to lengthen the term of leases that let frackers exploit state-owned lands. The bill’s headed to DeWine’s desk. To ask whether the governor will sign it is like asking if the sun will come up tomorrow. Is this really the Ohio that voters want to bequeath their daughters and sons – at least those who aren’t already so discouraged that they’re leaving?

Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.

To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-408-9474

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