Plain and simple, it was a night to forget for the Tennessee Vols going up against Ohio State. With so many Vols fans packing The Shoe, it felt like the script was being written for this team to pull off a monster upset and move on to the next round to face Oregon.
Things didn't go to plan. While people wearing orange showed up for the game in the best way possible, the guys on the field got off to the slowest start possible. It ended up haunting Tennessee in its 42-17 loss to Ohio State to end the 2024 campaign.
There are no excuses for this loss. You can bring up the fact that running back Dylan Sampson suffered a hamstring injury early on, but it doesn't change the fact that Ohio State jumped out to a 21-0 lead to open play up. At the end of the day, Josh Heupel is responsible for getting his players fired up to play in one of the biggest games of their lives, but he failed there.
Josh Heupel deserves plenty of blame for Tennessee's first-round CFP loss
Ohio State landed the early haymakers in this contest and the Buckeyes kept rolling. In the first quarter alone, OSU posted 205 total yards of offense and its three touchdowns. Tennessee posted 16 yards of offense in the first 15 minutes. That's inexcusable.
The play-calling was a bit questionable as well. You're likely going to read about this more than once, but the speed option call on 3rd-and-7 on the first drive of the second half was absolutely absurd. The Vols were down 21-10 at the time and had the momentum coming out of halftime.
However, that decision from Heupel led to a punt, with Ohio State scoring a touchdown not long after it got the ball right back. A speed option with Sampson not on the field made zero sense. This was the best Heupel could come up with?
It was more than clear that Ryan Day and his coaches studied the game film for Tennessee against Georgia. They had Heupel out of his element all night long and he didn't make the necessary adjustments. This loss is going to sting for a while and Heupel surely deserves plenty of blame for his team laying an egg like this in primetime.