How To Watch: No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State in the College Football Playoff
Game day, at long last, is finally here. No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State in the first round of the College Football Playoff kicks off Saturday night at 8 Eastern Time on ABC and ESPN live from Ohio Stadium in Columbus.
The winner between Tennessee (10-2) and Ohio State (10-2) will advance to the quarterfinal round in the new 12-team College Football Playoff bracket and will face No. 1 Oregon (13-0) in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year’s Day.
Saturday’s playoff triple header will begin with No. 11 SMU at No. 6 Penn State at Noon ET on TNT and streaming on HBO Max. No. 12 Clemson at No. 5 Texas will follow at 4 p.m. on TNT/HBO Max, then the highly anticipated nightcap between the Vols and Buckeyes.
No. 9 Tennessee at No. 8 Ohio State: How To Watch
Start Time: Saturday, 8 p.m. Eastern Time
TV: ABC/ESPN
Radio: WNML-FM 99.1 in Knoxville (Bob Kesling, Pat Ryan, Brent Hubbs, Jayson Swain). The Vol Network radio broadcast can be heard on local affiliates across the state of Tennessee.
SiriusXM: Ch. 82 | App: Ch. 82
The Line: Ohio State -7.5
The College Football Playoff Bracket
The four-highest ranked conference championships received byes into the quarterfinals: No. 1 Oregon, No. 2 Georgia, No. 3 Boise State and No. 4 Arizona State.
Georgia will face No. 7 Notre Dame in the Sugar Bowl after the Fighting Irish beat No. 10 Indiana Friday night in the playoff opener. Boise State will face the SMU-Penn State winner in the Fiesta Bowl and Arizona State will be in the Peach Bowl waiting on the Clemson-Texas winner.
The semifinals will be played on January 9 and January 10 in the Cotton Bowl and Orange Bowl. The 2025 National Championship Game will be played on Monday, January 20 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
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The bracket was set on December 8, sending Tennessee to its first ever game at Ohio State. Its the first Buckeye home game against an SEC team since 1988 — Ohio State beat LSU 36-33 on September 24 of that season — and the first game the Vols have played in the state of Ohio.
How Tennessee and Ohio State got here
Tennessee unofficially punched its ticket to the College Football with a 36-23 win at Vanderbilt on November 30, finishing the regular season with 10 wins for the second time in the past three years under Josh Heupel.
Ohio State, meanwhile, finished the regular season with a 13-10 loss to rival Michigan at Ohio Stadium despite being a three-touchdown favorite. The loss cost the Buckeyes a spot in the Big Ten championship game and rerouted them to the first round of the playoff.
“Excited to get to kickoff with our guys,” Heupel said this week. “(We) understand the quality of the opponent that we’re getting ready to play, the atmosphere of the game itself. Going to be electric. And everybody inside of our program is excited to go play this one.”
