Dylan Sampson's amazing season is proof of Tennessee coach Josh Heupel's ability to switch offensive gears from the up-tempo style he has run for years.
Sampson has more than delivered, literally helping run the seventh-ranked Volunteers into the newly expanded College Football Playoff.
Even better?
The man who mows through defenders like a speedy bowling ball is rested from the pounding he took while leading the Southeastern Conference in yards rushing and setting five school records at a program with a history of producing great running backs.
“I feel great,” Sampson said Monday. “This time off has been good to my body, probably the best I felt all season. You know, legs feel fresh. Every day counts.”
On Saturday night, the SEC's Offensive Player of the Year gets the chance to show just how healthy he is on Tennessee's biggest stage in years when the Vols (10-2, No. 7 CFP) visit sixth-ranked Ohio State in the first round.
The eighth-seeded Buckeyes (10-2, No. 6 CFP) are hosting thanks to one of the nation's best defenses against the run. Ohio State ranks seventh nationally, giving up just 96.8 yards per game.
Tennessee counters with Sampson leading the SEC's best rushing attack, a group that ran for an average of 232 yards a game. Sampson led the ninth-seeded Vols in rushing with a school record of 1,485 yards on 256 carries. He also set a program record with a league-best 22 rushing touchdowns, breaking a mark that had stood for 95 years.
Heupel credits Sampson's consistent approach from the meeting room, weight room, practice field and into games with helping him grow since arriving on campus in 2022. Sampson worked behind Jaylen Wright and Jabari Small, both now in the NFL, before taking over as the starter. The coach said the 5-foot-11, 201-pound Sampson prepared himself for the load he has carried this season.
“You watch the tape,” Heupel said. “He’s done a great job of creating big plays, explosive plays, making people miss. But he’s done a great job of understanding, you know, when it’s not clean, getting his pads down and going plus-two at the end of the runs. But he plays great without the ball in his hands as well. And a huge part of our success as a football team.”
The native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said Heupel adapted to his personnel.
Tennessee had been one of the nation's fastest offenses during Heupel's first three seasons, running plays so quickly that defenses struggled to substitute fresh defenders. Leaning on Sampson has helped Heupel and young quarterback Nico Iamaleava by chewing up ground and the clock. Iamaleava made his first collegiate start Jan. 1 in a rout of Iowa in the Citrus Bowl.
“You got to find, you know, what works game to game, week to week with this group of people and whatever that looks like to get it done to win,” Sampson said.
Tennessee goes to Columbus with Sampson coming off one of his best games.
Sampson ran for a career-best 178 yards on 25 carries in Tennessee's rout of Vanderbilt. That gave him the single-season rushing mark, topping the 1,464 yards by Travis Stephens in 2001. It also was Sampson's 10th 100-yard game of the season, one off the Tennessee record of 11 set by Jay Graham in 1995.
Center Cooper Mays has blocked for many of Sampson's runs. He's also watched the running back grow with a work ethic of doing everything the “right way.” All the yards, TDs and stats?
“That’s a result of all the work that he’s put in,” Mays said.
Sampson comes in fourth in the Football Bowl Subdivision and fifth in SEC single-season history with his 22 rushing TDs. He scored at least one in 11 straight games this season and has a single-season record of 132 points scored. He also ranks second in school history in rushing yards per game at 123.8, behind only Graham, who averaged 130.7 in 1995 with Peyton Manning at quarterback.
The Vols running back complimented Ohio State's defense, from the line to the safeties providing support in the run game. Sampson believes he will find room to run.
“There’s opportunity to make plays, but you’ve got to make them,” Sampson said.
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