Ohio State will host Tennessee in the first round of the expanded college football playoffs at Ohio Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 21 at 8 p.m.
The Buckeyes were awarded the eighth seed in the playoffs, while Tennessee is the ninth seed. This will be the first December home game in Ohio State football history.
This is the first year of the expanded 12-team college football playoffs, which features four first-round games on-campus games.
The winners of the four on-campus games, which place on Friday, Dec. 20 and Saturday, Dec 21. One game will be played on Friday night, while the other games will be played on Saturday.
The winners of the first-round games will advance on to play one of the top four seeded teams in the quarterfinals on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 in the quarterfinals at bowl games.
The playoff concludes on Jan. 20 with the national title game in Atlanta.
Big Ten champion Oregon, who beat Ohio State in October was awarded the top seed and will play the winner of the Buckeyes and Tennessee. Georgia is the second seed, Boise State is the third seed and Arizona State is the fourth seed.
In the other first-round games, Texas will host Clemson, Penn State will host SMU and Notre Dame will host Indiana.
The Big Ten conference placed four teams in the playoff, the most of any conference.
SMU captured the last open spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff on Sunday, bumping Alabama out of the first 12-team bracket.
The selection committee preferred the Mustangs (11-2), losers of a heartbreaker in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game, who had a far less difficult schedule than Alabama (9-3) of the SEC but, ultimately, still one fewer loss.
The expanded bracket marks a new era for college football, though the Alabama-SMU debate made clear that there is no perfect formula for identifying a champion.
Ohio State and Tennessee have played just once before. The Volunteers lead by Peyton Manning beat the Buckeyes in the 1996 Florida Citrus Bowl.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
