Staff photo / Preston Byers Ohio State's Jack Sawyer gets ready to enter the field for warmups before Saturday's College Football Playoff first-round game vs. Tennessee at Ohio Stadium in Columbus.

COLUMBUS — Three weeks after a stunning loss to archrival Michigan, Ohio State returned to Ohio Stadium, the scene of one of the worst defeats in the Ryan Day era, and earned one of the best victories since Day became the Buckeyes’ head coach before the 2019 season.

On Saturday night, Day and his team took a step toward redemption and a national championship by pummeling Tennessee 42-17 in a highly anticipated College Football Playoff first-round matchup between Big Ten and Southeastern Conference (SEC) powers.

Although Tennessee fans, donned in their signature orange, delivered on their promise and comprised a significant portion of the 102,819 attendees, Ohio State took the Volunteer faithful out of the game quickly.

Led by their stifling defense and quarterback Will Howard’s efficient passing, the Buckeyes sliced through the Tennessee defense en route to three consecutive scoring drives, which gave Ohio State a 21-0 lead in the first quarter.

After a middling second quarter, during which they turned the ball over, punted and missed a field goal, the Buckeyes resumed dominating.

In the second half, Ohio State scored a touchdown on each of its first three offensive possessions. Meanwhile, the Buckeye defense, which had surrendered points on back-to-back grueling drives in the second quarter, got back to shutting down Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava and the Vols offense, which earned 26 total yards in the third quarter.

The win, Day’s first against an SEC opponent, was emphatic and much needed for the team and their head coach after weeks of criticism from fans and media members, as well as questions about Day’s job security.

But Chip Kelly, the Buckeyes’ offensive coordinator and a longtime close friend of Day, said the sixth-year OSU head coach led “from the front” after suffering a fourth consecutive loss to Michigan last month.

“I just saw the guy I’ve known since he was five. And I told him a long time ago, he’s built for this,” said Kelly, who coached Day when the latter was a quarterback at New Hampshire. “He understands the gravity of what his position is, he understands how everybody feels about Buckeye football, and rightly so, and he feels the same exact way. So I don’t think anybody took the loss to the team up north harder than he took that loss. And that’s just the type of the person he is.”

Ohio State uncharacteristically started fast Saturday night, but it did not come without help from Tennessee.

The Buckeyes’ first drive of the game, as many have this season, seemed to stall when Bryson Eason brought down Buckeyes quarterback Will Howard for a 13-yard loss on third down. However, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) officiating crew said Eason grabbed Howard’s facemask, which gave OSU a fresh set of downs and the second chance it needed.

Two plays later, Howard found TreVeyon Henderson out of the backfield for a 21-yard gain. Howard then followed the completion up with a deep strike to freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith, who caught the 37-yard pass in the left side of the end zone for a touchdown.

The Buckeyes’ defense followed suit and forced the first of two consecutive three-and-outs from Nico Iamaleava and the Volunteers offense. And while Tennessee’s offensive unit became frustrated and stymied, Ohio State’s moved the ball at will.

On the Buckeyes’ second drive, Howard connected with Smith and Emeka Egbuka for completions of 18 yards and 40 yards, respectively, before Quinshon Judkins finished off the possession with a one-yard rushing touchdown.

The next drive had many similarities, as Howard found Henderson, Smith and Egbuka to get OSU inside Tennessee’s 30-yard line. Once there, the fifth-year quarterback handed the ball off to Henderson, who found open space on a rush up the middle, maintained his balance while tip-toeing along the sideline and scored on a 29-yard touchdown to give the Buckeyes a 21-0 lead with 3:27 remaining in the first quarter.

While the first 15 minutes belonged to Ohio State, Tennessee stopped the parade of Buckeye touchdowns with an interception; Will Brooks picked off Howard, whose pass found Smith in the end zone but popped up into the air and then Brooks’ arms five minutes into the quarter.

The defensive stop, Tennessee’s first of the game, seemed to give the Volunteers offense a boost, and Iamaleava led the Vols on a nine-play, 62-yard drive that ended with a 36-yard Max Gilbert field goal. The possession also featured a controversial roughing the passer call on Kenyatta Jackson Jr., which negated a Davison Igbinosun interception.

On the next drive, following a three-and-out and the first punt from OSU’s Joe McGuire, Tennessee grinded away and ultimately emerged with a touchdown as the culmination of a 16-play, 79-yard drive.

Ohio State entered halftime with a 21-10 lead after Buckeyes kicker Jayden Fielding’s attempted 55-yard field goal came up well short.

During the break, OSU defensive coordinator Jim Knowles, whose unit had largely limited the athletic Iamaleava, laid into his players.

“I got after them pretty good at halftime, I did, to be honest with you,” Knowles said, “because I felt like we were rolling in the beginning of the game and then I just felt we took our foot off the gas a little bit, so I got after them at halftime and challenged them.”

The defense answered the challenge.

On the first drive of the second half, the Buckeyes allowed just eight yards and forced Tennessee to punt after just six plays. Knowles’ crew did much of the same after that; OSU allowed just 36 yards and forced a punt or turnover on downs on Tennessee’s first five drives of the second half.

Day said his team, after being outscored 10-0 in the second quarter, understood the importance of starting the third quarter on a high note.

“That’s why we knew, coming out in the second half, we had to win the next four to five minutes. And we did. And that really helped,” Day said.

The offense got back to scoring, too.

After three scorless drives to end the first half, OSU, just like to start the game, scored touchdowns on each of its first three drives of the second half.

To resume the scoring, Howard, who threw for 311 yards Saturday, connected with Smith for a second time on a 22-yard touchdown pass. On the night, Smith tallied six catches and 106 yards, which pushed him past the 1,000-yard mark for the season, making him the 10th player in Ohio State history to achieve the feat and the first to do so in their freshman season.

Henderson and Judkins both added another touchdown to their season totals as well.

Judkins finished off another drive with a one-yard touchdown to give the Buckeyes a three-score lead, at which point some Tennessee fans began to make their way to the exit, shortly before Henderson found a crease in the middle of the field for a 24-yard score. The backs combined for 114 yards and four touchdowns on 20 carries Saturday.

The win is Ohio State’s first vs. Tennessee (10-3), which won the only previous matchup 20-14 back on New Year’s Day in the 1996 Florida Citrus Bowl.

The Buckeyes (11-2) now turn their attention to Big Ten foe Oregon (13-0), which handed OSU the first of its two losses this season. The Ducks, the reigning Big Ten champion, No. 1 seed in the 12-team College Football Playoff and the only remaining undefeated Division I Football Bowl Subdivision team, eked out a 32-31 win against OSU on Oct. 12 in Eugene.

Ohio State and Oregon will meet in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1 in Pasadena, California. The two teams met in ‘The Granddaddy of Them All’ in 2010 when Terrelle Pryor, Jim Tressel and the Buckeyes defeated the Chip Kelly-led Ducks 26-17.

It will be OSU’s first Rose Bowl in three years; the Buckeyes defeated Utah 48-45 in 2022.