Ohio State AD Ross Bjork reveals more details about Buckeyes hosting first-round CFP game

COLUMBUS — Ohio State did not want to host a first-round College Football Playoff game. The Buckeyes would much rather be skipping the first round and getting a bye straight to the Rose Bowl after winning the Big Ten championship.

But that didn’t happen. So the program is embracing everything that will come with hosting a CFP game in the first round of the first-ever 12-team bracket.

Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork had a simple message for Buckeyes fans about the first round game against Tennessee (Dec. 21, 8 p.m., ABC).

“What we need Buckeye Nation is to do is wear Scarlet,” Bjork said during an appearance on 97.1 The Fan’s Morning Juice radio show Thursday morning. “Don’t sell your tickets, because Tennessee fans are, they’re rabid fans. They’re going to try to invade the ‘Shoe. So let’s make sure we don’t have as much orange in there as people think. And so I think it’s just going to be an awesome atmosphere. The heat tracing, stuff covering the pipes, and all those kind of things that’s been going on for the last year to get the ‘Shoe ready for an outdoor game in December. We’ve never had a home game in December. Ohio State football history. So just a lot of great things around this.”

Bjork revealed quite a bit about what the Buckeyes are planning for the first round of the College Football Playoff in the Horseshoe, the first December postseason football game ever played in the stadium’s 102-year history.

Again, the Buckeyes would have rather won the Big Ten and earned the free pass to the quarterfinal round at the Rose Bowl. Now that it’s a home game, though, the Buckeyes are going all-out for this one against the Volunteers.

In addition to hosting ESPN’s College Gameday, SEC Network’s SEC Nation, Big Ten Network’s Big Ten Tailgate, The Pat McAfee Show’s simulcast and more, Ohio State has special in-game events planned. Expect to see a drone show, special effects with the lights and plenty more.

Only one stipulation: since it’s a CFP game, Tennessee will enjoy a few things as well. It’s not a typical Ohio State home game in some regards because the CFP has its standard operations that must be done.

“Look, we don’t want to have a home game, right? Competitively, you want a bye, right?” Bjork said. “Well, that didn’t happen. So now we’re hosting. So the template has been laid out for the last couple of years. The work has been laid out. It’ll essentially, we’re going to operate the game from a logistics, law enforcement just like we would a normal home game. The in-game atmosphere is going to be a little more controlled by the CFP. Our staff will do it, but the scripting, how music’s played — like, Tennessee will have an intro video when their team runs on the field. We wouldn’t do that for a normal visiting team, right? But we’ll be able to do a lot of similar things that we do now, but the script will be a little more tame, if you will, in terms of what the CFP will allow. Not as many sponsor reads, not as many sponsor activations, but it also allows us to maybe do more things that are — like we’re doing a scarlet-out. So we want that to be an atmosphere that we can really latch on to.

“So maybe more things that we can do with our LED boards, with our video board that normally would be a sponsor. Now we can make it about atmosphere. So we’ll have pyro, we’ll have a drone show. I mean, we’re going to do as many things. Having a night game, people have been clamoring for night games. So now we have it, yeah, so we want to go all in. But ticket revenue goes to the CFP. We can only keep concession revenue, parking revenue. We can have a few fees on attached to tickets. The pregame stuff will all be pretty similar to what we do now. So the fan fest, Skull Session, the pregame radio show, all those things.”

At the beginning of the season, Ohio State set three goals for its ‘natty or bust’ roster: beat Michigan, win the Big Ten, win the national title. The first two didn’t happen. Now the Buckeyes still have a path for the third by getting into the 12-team playoff.

With a first-round home game as the initial step toward competing for the national championship, Bjork wants Ohio State to do everything it can to create a massive home-field advantage next Saturday night.

“We don’t want to be hosting, but we are, so let’s embrace it,” Bjork said. “Let’s go all in. We need Buckeye Nation to show up. It’s gonna be an awesome day.”