COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Will Howard threw two touchdown passes to freshman Jeremiah Smith and Ohio State routed Tennessee 42-17 on Saturday night in a first-round College Football Playoff game, setting up a New Year's Day rematch with No. 1 Oregon at the Rose Bowl.
Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson rushed for two touchdowns apiece as the Buckeyes (11-2) gave their fans an early Christmas present that should quiet some of the outcry following the devastating fourth straight loss to Michigan three weeks ago.
“You could tell from the jump that they had a look in their eyes that they were going to win this game,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said.
Howard finished 24 for 29 for 311 yards, his second 300-yard game of the season. Smith had six catches for 103 yards, the sixth freshman to have over 100 receiving yards in a CFP game. Henderson had 10 carries for 80 yards.
“We really put together a full, all-out performance, and I think that’s what we needed to do and what we needed to show,” Howard said.
Eighth-seeded Ohio State scored on its first three drives while forcing three straight Tennessee punts. The ninth-seeded Vols (10-3) finally got on the board with a second-quarter field goal and touchdown but couldn't generate anything in the second half until getting a meaningless touchdown late in the game.
″We didn’t play the way we needed to, we didn’t play well enough, and we didn’t coach well enough," Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said.
“They made some plays — that’s going to happen against a good team, but what we didn’t do is to come back and find a way to get back on the right side of it, and that’s offensively and defensively."
The 473 yards gained by Ohio State was the most surrendered by the Tennessee defense all season.
The game-time temperature was 25 degrees and dropping in the first college football game played in December in 102-year-old Ohio Stadium.
Tennessee: Star running back Dylan Sampson was hampered by a hamstring injury and had just two carries for 6 yards. Receivers Squirrel White and Dont'e Thorton Jr. also were banged up. limiting the Vols' offense.
Ohio State: The Buckeyes did what they didn't do against Michigan: get the ball on the boundary, throw deep to their most explosive players while establishing a run game.
“We called this game more aggressively,” Day said. “There’s no question about that.”
The Buckeyes’ defense is statistically the best in the nation and certainly looked like it against Tennessee. The front dogged quarterback Nico Iamaleava and sacked him four times, twice by JT Tuimoloau. The Vols finished with 256 yards, but a big chunk of that came late when the game was already out of reach. They managed just 3.7 yards per play.
Iamaleava finished just 14 for 31 for 104 yards, his lowest total of the season. He rushed a career-high 20 times for 47 yards.
“I got after them at half time and challenged them, because I knew the way the game was going, as long as we did our job everything was going to turn out all right,” Ohio State defensive coordinator Jim Knowles said. “So, I thought we came out strong in the second half.”
There was a large mix of Tennessee orange in the Ohio Stadium crowd of over 104,000, by far biggest fan turnout by an Ohio State opponent in recent memory. Vols fans certainly seemed to get their hands on more than the 3,500 tickets allotted to the school by the NCAA.
The Buckeyes advance to a second-round game against Oregon in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1. They lost to the Ducks 32-31 on Oct. 12.
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