The Ohio State football program has had a clear philosophy when it comes to NIL over the last couple of years. They will not pay incoming recruits a massive amount of NIL money. It has been something that Ryan Day and Ross Bjork have been preaching since NIL became legal.
As the House settlement got approved, the Ohio State Buckeyes decided to fold their NIL collectives into the school so that players could directly pay kids. Other schools kept things separate and allowed their collectives to accumulate money in addition to what the schools are able to pay players.
Ross Bjork made the decision not to pay some big-time recruits in the last few weeks because he thought that NIL collectives were going to be outlawed by the settlement. He played it too safely, and now time has proven that he made a giant mistake. He might be the only one who hasn't realized that.
Ohio State AD Ross Bjork finally realizes his terrible NIL mistake, but might double down on a bad philosophy
Bjork claims that the Buckeye Sports Group, which is the in-house service that will be paying players, can operate like a collective. He doesn't indicate that the Buckeyes won't be adding back collectives into the NIL fold, which they absolutely should be doing.
If Ohio State doesn't bring back collectives to help fund the program, they are deliberately tying one hand behind their back. It's something that is a no-brainer for them to do. For some reason, Bjork seems extremely confident that the football program can fund itself in-house.
This is shaping up to be the worst recruiting class in the Ryan Day era. Lack of funding is certainly a big reason for that. They still have time to fix things, but they need to have an AD who is willing to help them do that.