The Tennessee Volunteers are headed to “The Shoe.”
Tennessee (10-2) is the ninth seed in the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff and will travel to eighth-seeded Ohio State (10-2) in a first-round pairing. ESPN will televise the Tennessee-Ohio State matchup at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 21.
This is the 11th edition of the College Football Playoff, which employed a four-team field from its inception in 2014 through last season, and it’s the first to contain the Vols.
“For us, this is the next step for our program,” Tennessee fourth-year coach Josh Heupel said Sunday afternoon on a Zoom call. “It’s something our players have worked towards since January. You earn the right to be in a game like this, and I’m proud of what we’ve done throughout the course of the regular season. The new season starts here.
“There was an expectation inside of our program to earn the right to play in a game like this in the postseason, so there is a lot of excitement here. We also understand that we’re getting ready to go play a great team and that we’ve got to be at our best.”