OSU President Estimates 30% of Crowd Could Be Tennessee Fans for CFP Home Game
Ohio State president Ted Carter is apparently bracing for an influx of Vols fans ahead of the Buckeyes' home playoff matchup with Tennessee.
Carter believes 30 percent of the crowd at Ohio Stadium on Dec. 21 could be cheering on the visiting team, according to University of Tennessee System president Randy Boyd.
Ohio Stadium is one of the largest FBS venues in the country and could potentially pack in a maximum capacity of more than 102,000 people for the upcoming first-round matchup.
Buckeyes athletics director Ross Bjork previously attempted to halt an attempted Vols takeover of the stadium.
"Don't sell your tickets," Bjork told fans in a recent appearance on 97.1 The Fan's Morning Juice, per Mike Wilson of the Knoxville News Sentinel. "Tennessee fans, they're rabid fans. They are going to invade The 'Shoe. So let's make sure we don't have as much orange in there as people think."
Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel said on Monday that he wasn't surprised by the push from Volunteers fans, who were originally designated fewer than 4,000 tickets to the game (h/t The Spun's Andrew Holleran.)
"It's a nice short drive up there," Heupel said, per Adam Sparks of the Knoxville News Sentinel. "Christmas is around the corner, and (a CFP ticket) would make a great Christmas present. Hope to see a bunch of our fans up there."
Ryan Day and the Buckeyes had aspirations of a playoff seed higher than No. 8 before dropping their regular-season finale to Michigan.
Had Ohio State won the rivalry game, the team would have punched a ticket to the Big Ten title game against Oregon and gained a potential path to the No. 1 seed in the CFP.
Instead, Oregon defeated Penn State in the conference championship game to earn the No. 1 seed, leaving Ohio State to fall out of first-round bye territory.
The Buckeyes still earned home advantage for the first round, but face a difficult path through the expanded playoff. The winner of the upcoming first-round game will get the opportunity to take on undefeated Oregon in Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.
The Ohio State-Tennessee first-round matchup marks the first game ever played at Ohio Stadium in December, per the university.
It also marks just the second time Tennessee and Ohio State have ever played one another, with the previous matchup occurring after the 1995 season in Orlando during the Florida Citrus Bowl.
Boyd also reported that the game will be the first time the Volunteers have played at temperatures below freezing "in decades." According to Ohio State, the game-day forecast maxes out at 28 degrees.
