Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said this on Saturday evening Dylan Sampsons missed most of Ohio State’s 42-17 College Football Playoff loss due to a soft tissue injury sustained late on Nov. 30 at Vanderbilt.

The Vols defeated Vandy 36-23 behind Sampson’s season-high 178 rushing yards, helping his team earn a ticket to the new 12-team College Football Playoff. Against Ohio State at Ohio Stadium, he only threw for six yards twice, coming on the first possession of the game and then two snaps in the second half.

Heupel added that Sampson missed practice time the first two weeks of playoff practice but returned to practice this week.

“At the end of the Vandy game he had a bump,” Heupel said, “and it was soft tissue. And he had been out for the first few weeks and came back to us. I started setting it up over the course of the week. I felt like he was in a good place.

“I expected that he wouldn’t have the same stress that he normally would have. I just reworked it at the start of the game and was unavailable there for a while.”

Without Samspon, quarterback Nico Iamaleava had to run 20 times for 47 yards. Freshmen Peyton Lewis ran 10 times for a team-high 77 yards and redshirt freshman DeSean Bishop ran seven times for 22 yards. Tennessee second-year running back Cameron Seldon left the team eight days ago to enter the NCAA transfer portal.

Sampson met with reporters in Knoxville earlier this week and said he felt “great” when asked to take three weeks off.

“This time off was good for my body,” Sampson said. “It’s probably the best I’ve felt all season. My legs feel fresh. Every day counts.”

Sampson, Tennessee’s junior running back from Baton Rouge, La., carried the Vols during the regular season. He set a new season record with 1,485 yards and 22 touchdowns. Travis Stephens held the previous rushing yards record with 1,464 in 2001 and gene McEver held the previous touchdown record with 19.

Sampson became Tennessee’s 20th running back to rush for over 1,000 yards this season when he ran for 149 yards on a season-high 30 carries against Mississippi State on Nov. 9.

He ran for 100 or more yards in 10 of 13 games this season and 130 or more yards six times. He had multiple rushing touchdowns in seven games, including three of three or more, but did not score a rushing touchdown in either of Tennessee’s final two games.

“We knew Dylan wasn’t 100%,” Tennessee offensive coordinator Joey Halzle said during his postgame press conference. “We knew he was going to go early and he was going to try. If this guy isn’t at 100%, you know, he’s the SEC Offensive Player of the Year, right, he makes everything work.

“So it was tough to lose him and not even get him up to speed. But that’s part of the job: What are you going to do to get the job done if you’re not healthy, if you’re not 100 percent fit? We didn’t make it tonight.”