One of the reasons the Tennessee Vols didn't have much offensive success in their College Football Playoff loss to the Ohio State Buckeyes was because running back Dylan Sampson received only three touches.

Sampson was the Vols' best offensive player in 2024 (he set a program record for rushing yards and rushing touchdowns in a season), but he was unable to make an impact against Ohio State due to a hamstring injury. 

Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel told reporters after the loss to the Buckeyes that Sampson suffered an injury during the Vols' regular season finale against the Vanderbilt Commodores. 

"End of the Vandy game, got dinged up, and it was soft tissue, and had been out the first couple weeks and got back with us," said Heupel. "Started building him through the week. Felt like he was in a good spot…Anticipated him not having the same type of load that he normally would have. Just early in the game kind of re-tweaked it and wasn't available there for a while."

Despite Heupel's comments, some fans (mostly opposing fans) and media questioned Sampson's injury  — likely due to the comments that Sampson made a few days before the game against Ohio State. 

“I feel great,” said Sampson five days before playing the Buckeyes. “This time off has been good to my body, probably the best I felt all season. You know, legs feel fresh. Every day counts.”

Sampson made it clear this week at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis that he was trying to "talk positive" so he could give his all for his team after suffering the injury against Vanderbilt. The Baton Rouge native, however, simply wasn't healed in time for the Ohio State game. 

"A lot of people thought I got hurt in that game (against Ohio State)," said Sampson. "But no, I was dealing with a hamstring injury from (the) Vandy (game) and it was lingering and I was trying to talk positive. It was feeling good. The only thing I didn’t have that week of practice was contact and I tried to go out and give my all for my team but it just wasn’t going. I would have been a liability out there and I didn’t want to get anybody else hurt or further injure myself."

Sampson admitted that not being able to contribute in the College Football Playoff was hard. He also made sure to let people who thought that he "wasn't playing strong" for his team know that they're misguided in their opinions. 

"In a moment like that, you knew the opportunity we had just to get into the playoffs, it was hard not being able to play for my team," explained Sampson. "People from the outside looking in thought I wasn’t playing strong for my team, but that wasn’t the case. If I could have went, I would have been out there."

Sampson carried the ball 112 times in November (six more carries than he had in all of 2023). There's no doubt that he gave his all for Tennessee in 2024. But a player can only take so much and Sampson, who had nearly 100 more carries in 2024 than he had in his first two years combined at Tennessee, pushed the limit on how much his body could take last season. 

Anyone questioning Sampson's effort and his dedication to his teammates obviously didn't follow his college career very closely. You'll be hard pressed to find a better teammate or leader than Dylan Sampson. 

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