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Football is war.

This includes psychological warfare, and the Tennessee Volunteers decided to go with one of the most popular tricks in the football psychological warfare playbook as of late, by hitting the field at frosty Ohio Stadium without an ounce of cloth anywhere on their torsos.

That’s right, no-shirt cold-weather warmups are back.

We saw a few teams take this approach a couple of weeks ago, when we talked about both the Arkansas Razorbacks and FCS’s Grand Valley State Lakers both did this on the same weekend.

Did it work?

No, both lost that weekend.

But still, it doesn’t hurt to show up for a game reminding everyone that the cold doesn’t bother you in the least, and that’s what the Volunteers did on Saturday night.

Cold? Never heard of it.

That’s pretty intimidating, although we need some dudes to lose the ski masks or balaclavas or whatever. It kills the illusion that the cold isn’t bothering you. 

Even if you’re torso is free as the wind blows, wearing a ski mask tells me you’re cold. 

And if it tells me — a very handsome guy in Florida who had a knit cap on earlier today because it dipped into the mid-50s — that you’re cold; then some Buckeyes players and staff are probably thinking the same thing.

“They went tarps off… but that dude has a ski mask on so I think they’re still pretty damn cold.“

Still, this trend keeps coming up, and if the Vols can leave Columbus with a win, expect to see it even more.

Of course, what do you do when the weather isn’t cold? Well, OutKick’s own Ian Miller had an idea for how teams could get a similar psychological edge in the heat.

I’d honestly be more psyched out by the sight of dudes wearing sweaters and heavy coats in the dead of summer.