Tennessee will hit the road to take on Ohio State for a first-round playoff matchup from Ohio Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 21.
While Knoxville presents a chilly environment in itself that the Vols are used to, Tennessee will be playing in Ohio in late December in an 8:00 p.m. ET kickoff without the sun anywhere in sight.
The Weather Channel currently predicts a high of 37 degrees and a low of 26 degrees for that day in Columbus, Ohio. Certainly not a warm day by any stretch, but there doesn’t look to be horribly brutal conditions to play in.
Either way, Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel believes that his team will be prepared for the X-Factor that is the cold weather conditions under the lights in Ohio Stadium. Tennessee practices in the morning during cold stretches in Knoxville and recently played a game in Nashville against Vanderbilt in the 30s temperature. Heupel, a native of South Dakota, believes his team will be good to go in the cold.
“Yeah, not sure what the temperature will be up there at night,” Heupel said to the media on Sunday. “Know it won’t be sunny and 85. We played in 30-degree weather a week ago. For us, a lot of our practices are in the morning. We’re outside. It’ll be similar temperatures to what you’re going to get up there. Our guys got to be able to handle anything that comes at them. That’s weather, it’s outside distractions. It’s us getting ready to go be our best 11 on 11 between the white lines. And we’ll be ready to handle that and operate at a high level.”
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Knowing that Tennessee’s first playoff appearance in program history is going to be set in a cold weather environment, Heupel is going to be preparing his team in the chilly conditions over the next two weeks leading to the game.
“During the course of the lead up to kickoff, we’ll be outside as much as we possibly can,” Heupel said in his Sunday interview. “Typically the temperatures, at some point during this preparation will mirror what we think we’ll have on Saturday night up there. We typically get outside unless something’s not right with the grass fields, as far as wet, damp, frost, whatever it might be.”
Tennessee’s offense is built for cold-weather football, though, thanks to the running ability of Dylan Sampson. The Vols’ historic running back has been tremendous this season and has been a big reason for Tennessee’s offense moving forward despite some up-and-down stretches from the passing game this season. If the ball gets cold and slick and tough to catch, Tennessee will likely lean on its front five and give the ball to Dylan Sampson to create some heat in the trenches.
8-seed Ohio State will host 9-seed Tennessee in the first round of the College Football Playoffs on Saturday, Dec. 21, at 8:00 p.m. ET. Stay tuned to Rocky Top Insider for live, on-site coverage of the game from Columbus, Ohio.
Check out Josh Heupel’s full media press conference on Sunday below.
