Will Howard threw two touchdown passes to freshman Jeremiah Smith and Ohio State routed Tennessee 42-17 on Saturday night in a first-round College Football Playoff game, setting up a New Year’s Day rematch with No. 1 Oregon at the Rose Bowl.

Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson rushed for two touchdowns apiece as the Buckeyes (11-2) gave their fans an early Christmas present that should quiet some of the outcry following the devastating fourth straight loss to Michigan three weeks ago.

“You could tell from the jump that they had a look in their eyes that they were going to win this game,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said.

Howard finished 24 for 29 for 311 yards, his second 300-yard game of the season. Smith had six catches for 103 yards, the sixth freshman to have over 100 receiving yards in a CFP game. Henderson had 10 carries for 80 yards.

“We really put together a full, all-out performance, and I think that’s what we needed to do and what we needed to show,” Howard said.

Eighth-seeded Ohio State scored on its first three drives while forcing three straight Tennessee punts. The ninth-seeded Vols (10-3) finally got on the board with a second-quarter field goal and touchdown but couldn’t generate anything in the second half until getting a meaningless touchdown late in the game.

“We didn’t play the way we needed to, we didn’t play well enough, and we didn’t coach well enough,” Tennessee coach Josh Heupel said.

“They made some plays — that’s going to happen against a good team, but what we didn’t do is to come back and find a way to get back on the right side of it, and that’s offensively and defensively.”

The 473 yards gained by Ohio State was the most surrendered by the Tennessee defense all season.

The game-time temperature was 25 degrees and dropping in the first college football game played in December in 102-year-old Ohio Stadium.

Texas 38, Clemson 24: Jaydon Blue had the biggest run in the biggest game of the season so far for Texas. He had to fight through a nagging ankle injury and fumble problems to do it.

Blue ran for 146 yards, dashing 77 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to help the Longhorns beat Clemson on Saturday in the first round of the expanded College Football Playoff.

Blue was first thrust into the starting role when training camp injuries knocked out C.J. Baxter and Christian Clark for the season. Blue missed a game with the ankle injury, then saw his carries reduced over several games because of fumble problems.

Texas (12-2), the No. 5 seed, advanced to the Jan. 1 Peach bowl to play Big 12 champion and No. 4 seed Arizona State.

“You can’t win (the championship) if you don’t win the first one,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “We did that.”

Blue already had a 38-yard touchdown earlier in the game. The second one came after Clemson had rallied from down 31-10 to within 31-24 on Cade Klubnik’s third touchdown pass.

Blue scored on 38-yard cut-and-dash burst in the second quarter. On the second touchdown, he dove into the line, shook a tackler, and then outraced three more to the end zone with just 11 minutes left.

He clutched the ball tightly to his chest when a defender tried to rip it away.

“It was a sigh of relief after everything I’ve been going through,” Blue said. “I stayed patient, I saw a crease and it was everything (open) from there.”

Sarkisian said Blue never lost the trust of the team.

“Our staff, his teammates, believed in him,” Sarkisian said. “I just gave him a big hug and told him how proud I was.”

Quintrevion Wisner added 110 yards rushing and two first-half touchdowns for Texas. Quinn Ewers passed for 202 yards and a touchdown.

Klubnik, who grew up in Austin, passed for 336 yards and rallied the Tigers (10-4) in the second half against a Texas defense that had given up just four passing touchdowns all season.

“We just got ourselves in too big a hole in the first half. Everything was uphill.” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said. “We just put it in Cade’s hands and let it rip.”

Penn State 38, Southern Methodist 10: In a time of incessant change, Penn State linebacker Dominic DeLuca is a throwback.

The former walk-on’s team might be one too.

DeLuca was guaranteed nothing when he arrived on campus nearly four years ago without the promise of a scholarship or much of anything else. He poured himself into his craft, carving out a niche as a special teams ace while working his way into the rotation on a defense that considers itself the best in the country.

With sixth-seeded Penn State off to a somewhat jittery start on Saturday against SMU in the first round of the College Football Playoff, the Nittany Lions needed a jolt.

DeLuca provided two.

The first came on a pick-6 that gave Penn State an early lead. The second cut short an SMU drive when the Mustangs were threatening to get back in the game and set the stage for a blowout that pushed the Nittany Lions (12-2) into the CFP quarterfinals against third-seeded Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Eve.

“Dom is just a baller,” Penn State head coach James Franklin said after picking up his 100th victory with the school.

One whose journey may become increasingly rare when the NCAA trims roster sizes to 105 starting next season.

“It breaks my heart a little bit that maybe Dom isn’t here if these rules were in place (when he arrived),” Franklin said.

The old ones still exist, for now. And Franklin used them to build a team that now has as many wins as any of the 130 editions that came before it.

“We’re a college football program that everybody should be proud of because those guys are doing it the right way at a time when it’s more challenging than it’s ever been,” he said.

Linebacker Tony Rojas added a pick-6 of his own and Penn State shut down Kevin Jennings and the high-powered Mustangs (11-3), whose breakout season ended amid a flurry of mistakes and miscues and did little to shed the notion — particularly by those in Alabama — that the ACC runners-up didn’t necessarily deserve a spot in the 12-team field in the first place.

“I can’t control the debate,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said. “I can’t control what people are going to say. We got in. Today we got beat. We got beat soundly by a very good team.”

Two weeks after getting pushed around by Oregon in the Big Ten title game, Penn State responded by forcing three turnovers and collecting three sacks while holding the Mustangs to season lows in points and yards (253).

“We wanted to put on a defensive performance like we did,” Penn State defensive tackle Dvon J-Thomas said. “Two pick-6s. Stopped the run. Stopped the pass game. We truly shut everything down.”

Jennings, whose electrifying play fueled SMU’s undefeated regular-season sprint through the ACC, finished 20 of 36 for 195 yards with a late touchdown and three picks. He began the day by missing a wide-open tight end Matthew Hibner at the goal line to end the Mustangs’ promising opening possession, and things only got worse from there, for Jennings and everyone else who made the nearly 1,400-mile trip from Dallas to central Pennsylvania.

His flip to Brashard Smith on SMU’s second drive sailed over the running back’s head and into the arms of an awaiting DeLuca, who raced 23 yards to the end zone to give Penn State the lead. Early in the second quarter, Jennings scrambled to his right and threw against his body into triple coverage. Rojas snagged it and weaved 59 yards to stake the Nittany Lions to a 14-0 lead they never came close to squandering.

Kaytron Allen ran for two scores and Nick Singleton added another for the Nittany Lions, a bruising 1-yard gash late in the first half that put Penn State up 28-0. Singleton punctuated it by jawing with Franklin on the sideline.

“He screamed at me and used some words ... and said ‘I’m a violent man,’” Franklin said. “I kind of agreed with him.”

Drew Allar completed 13 of 22 passes for 127 yards while playing every meaningful snap after backup Beau Pribula — who occasionally and effectively spelled Allar throughout the year — entered the transfer portal earlier this week.

Notre Dame 27, Indiana 17: Marcus Freeman learned the hard lessons from all those big losses as well as the inexplicable ones.

On Friday night, in the first game in college football’s new playoff era, the Notre Dame coach celebrated the most significant victory of his career — in Notre Dame Stadium with snowflakes flying and players singing the school’s alma mater.

Jeremiyah Love tied the school record with a 98-yard touchdown run on the third play of the game, Riley Leonard accounted for two more scores and the Fighting Irish held high-scoring Indiana in check, giving seventh-seeded Notre Dame its first ever playoff victory.

“There’s not many times in your life that you’re the first to do something, right?” Freeman said. “We’re the first group to play and win a playoff game at Notre Dame Stadium, so that’s something we’ll share for the rest of our lives.”

He and the Irish (12-1) have a day or two to savor their 11th consecutive win to tie the school record for most wins in a season — their first in four playoff tries.

But it’s only one step. Next up is SEC champion Georgia (11-2) in the Sugar Bowl and a chance to reach the semifinals as they chase their first national title since 1988.

“It’s really cool, but at the same time it’s another football game,” said Leonard, who ran for one record-breaking score and threw for another. “We’re just trying to stay alive and play as many games as we can because we love the game, love preparing for it and we love representing this university.’

If they play as well as they did against 10th-seeded Indiana (11-2), the Irish just might end the program’s longest title drought since winning their first claimed championship in 1924.

Notre Dame seized control quickly thanks to Love’s incredible early burst and they eventually ended the Hoosiers magical season despite giving up 14 points in the final 87 seconds in the same venue they nearly saw their season derailed Sept. 7 with a 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois.

This time, they left no doubt on a chilly, brisk stage for the first CFP game ever played on a campus site, handing the Hoosiers their second straight loss to a top five opponent this season. Indiana set a single-season school record for wins but still hasn’t won at Notre Dame since 1898.

“They took it to us. I thought their quarterback played really well, I thought their defense suffocated our offense till the last 1:50 or whatever,” said Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti, the AP Coach of the Year. “They won, they deserved to win. We didn’t play our best game, but they had a lot to do with that tonight.”

It started with Xavier Watts’ interception of Kurtis Rourke’s pass at the Irish 2,

On the next play, Love scooted around the right side of the defense, eluded one tackle and sprinted down the sideline to make it 7-0. He tied Josh Adams for the longest run in Irish history, set in 2015 against Wake Forest. It was also the longest run in CFP history.

Love finished with eight carries for 108 yards despite not being full strength and appearing to reinjure his left knee later in the first half.

“I was looking up at the video board — he wasn’t going to catch me,” Love said.

Indiana never recovered after Notre Dame made it 14-0 early in the second quarter. Leonard’s 1-yard TD run late in the fourth gave him 15 this season to break Notre Dame’s season record by a quarterback.

Leonard was 23 of 32 with 201 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Notre Dame receiver Jordan Faison caught seven passes for 89 yards.

Indiana quarterback Kurtis Rourke turned in another poor game against a strong defense, finishing 20 of 33 with 215 yards, with two TDs and one interception and the Hoosiers rushed for just 63 yards.