Ryan Day pins lack of enforcement, not tampering, as CFB's biggest problem
Ryan Day knows tampering is a hot-button topic in college football. The Ohio State head coach has even had to battle it himself with reports of Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate being approached with offers to transfer in spite of never entering the portal.
However, the head coach believes there is one problem beyond tampering. That would be rule enforcement across the sport.
Right now, Day sees a lack of penalties for those who break the rules, and he foresees a rising generation of coaches who will further question the need to comply with anything if rules are not enforced:
“I’m not talking about tampering, I’m just saying in general: one of the biggest problems we have in college football is enforcement… Any rule right now. Because the enforcement just isn’t there,” Day said about the current landscape. “I think there’s a generation of young coaches who are coming up in this profession saying why do I (need to) follow the rules?
“Integrity, sure, but there needs to start becoming some kind of penalties for breaking the rules. Otherwise, we’re going to just have a generation of young coaches who see what’s going on across college football and continue to do that and have a disregard for any rule.”
While tampering was the topic proposed by Joel Klatt in the interview, you can bet Day had another issue on his mind. Bringing up rule-breaking and a lack of enforcement undoubtedly has to be directed, in some measure, at Michigan and the sign-stealing scandal that came to a head in 2023.
The NCAA has been conducting an investigation but there has yet to be an official ruling on the matter from Jim Harbaugh’s tenure in Ann Arbor. It was also revealed recently that Michigan intends to find any penalties the NCAA hands down.
“If you make a rule, but you can’t enforce it, then you have no structure… We’re putting these band-aids and patches and different things on them and continue to move on,” said Ryan Day. “The product is great, but… we still have an obligation to do things with integrity.”