Breaking News :Dylan Sampson announced his departure and decommit from Tennessee Vols…

 

Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson is questionable to return to Saturday’s playoff game against Ohio State, the team announced in the second half of action.

 

The tailback is dealing with a lower body injury, the team said.

Sampson had not carried the football since the 3:27 mark of the first quarter at the time the school made the announcement and has walked gingerly since that time.

 

Vols head coach Josh Heupel was short on answers when asked about Sampson’s condition at the halftime break in remarks to ESPN’s Marty Smith.

 

“Look, a lot of football left,” he said. “We got 30 more minutes. Let’s go play.”

 

Sampson attempted to warm up on the Vols’ sideline and on the field at times during breaks in the game, but has not been able to return to action.

Smith reported that Sampson was putting in work on the bicycle on the sideline and that it appeared the player was trying to loosen his left hamstring.

 

Sampson has been a key component of Tennessee’s offense this season, leading a rushing attack that ranks ninth nationally in total production.

 

In his absence, quarterback Nico Iamaleava emerged as the Vols’ leading rusher with 36 yards on 13 attempts and a touchdown.

 

DeSean Bishop ran four times for 13 yards for the Volunteers.

 

Tennessee also listed wide receiver Squirrel White as questionable to return to the game after he retired to the locker room just before halftimeThe team that couldn’t beat a four-touchdown underdog at home has now won 13 consecutive games — with a chance for one more, the biggest of them all.

“I often tell them, in your lowest moments you find out the most about yourself,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman. “We’ve had low moments, but we had a really low moment Week 2, and these guys battled. We’ve got great leaders. We’ve got great players that chose to put this university and this football program in front of themselves.”

 

Notre Dame’s coaches and players credit Freeman, who turned 39 at midnight after the game, with keeping the Irish on track after their stunning loss to Northern Illinois. It was an arduous task for a former defensive coordinator who had never been a head coach until he was promoted on Dec. 3, 2021, to replace Brian Kelly, who left for LSU.

 

“He handled it magnificently,” Golden said. “Just being in that situation, being in that chair like that, that’s tough. There’s no escape from it, but it never got to the locker room. It never got to the team meeting room. He handled all the stress and all the pressure internally, and was the leader that we all needed at that moment.”

Freeman didn’t want the Fighting Irish to wipe the pain of losing to Northern Illinois from their memory. He wanted them to embrace the adversity to remember that they can never take anything for granted.

 

Freeman’s message to his team was simple: Keep the pain. Don’t let it go.

 

“I think it really caused us to lock the locker room door and say, ‘Hey, it’s just us. The people in this room are the only things that matter,'” said linebacker Jack Kiser. “I think Coach Freeman’s message and mentality through the rest of the year kind of echoed that.”

 

The day after the Northern Illinois loss, defensive tackle Howard Cross III huddled with Freeman and quarterback Riley Leonard.

 

“It’s the second game of the season,” Cross told them. “I’m not going to go belly up in the second game of the season. We need to keep pushing.”

 

The Irish won their next 12 games by an average of 27.5 points. Only one of them, a 31-24 victory over Louisville, was decided by fewer than 10The team that couldn’t beat a four-touchdown underdog at home has now won 13 consecutive games — with a chance for one more, the biggest of them all.

 

“I often tell them, in your lowest moments you find out the most about yourself,” said Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman. “We’ve had low moments, but we had a really low moment Week 2, and these guys battled. We’ve got great leaders. We’ve got great players that chose to put this university and this football program in front of themselves.”

 

Notre Dame’s coaches and players credit Freeman, who turned 39 at midnight after the game, with keeping the Irish on track after their stunning loss to Northern Illinois. It was an arduous task for a former defensive coordinator who had never been a head coach until he was promoted on Dec. 3, 2021, to replace Brian Kelly, who left for LSU.

 

“He handled it magnificently,” Golden said. “Just being in that situation, being in that chair like that, that’s tough. There’s no escape from it, but it never got to the locker room. It never got to the team meeting room. He handled all the stress and all the pressure internally, and was the leader that we all needed at that moment.”

 

Freeman didn’t want the Fighting Irish to wipe the pain of losing to Northern Illinois from their memory. He wanted them to embrace the adversity to remember that they can never take anything for granted.

 

Freeman’s message to his team was simple: Keep the pain. Don’t let it go.

 

“I think it really caused us to lock the locker room door and say, ‘Hey, it’s just us. The people in this room are the only things that matter,'” said linebacker Jack Kiser. “I think Coach Freeman’s message and mentality through the rest of the year kind of echoed that.”

 

The day after the Northern Illinois loss, defensive tackle Howard Cross III huddled with Freeman and quarterback Riley Leonard.

 

“It’s the second game of the season,” Cross told them. “I’m not going to go belly up in the second game of the season. We need to keep pushing.”

 

The Irish won their next 12 games by an average of 27.5 points. Only one of them, a 31-24 victory over Louisville, was decided by fewer than 10