The Ohio State football program was able to win the national championship thanks to a roster full of great players. They had multiple All-Americans on their squad and they finally put it all together during the College Football Playoff during one of the greatest runs in school history.
Among those great players is Jeremiah Smith. Smith proved to be the best player that the Ohio State Buckeyes had on offense. He might have been the best player on the entire team. The best part for the Buckeyes is that he is just a freshman, so they have two more years of him.
That is unless another program is able to pry him away with a big NIL offer. There has been a report that Smith and Carnell Tate have been tampered with by other programs and offered huge NIL deals. Ryan Day was asked about this during an interview on Friday and his response is interesting.
Ohio State football coach Ryan Day calls for NIL reform
While speaking on the Dan Patrick Show, Day mentioned that everything is in too much of a gray area with NIL.
Day is just looking for some guidelines, so he knows what he can and can't do. There is not enough incentive for programs to stop tampering with other players because nothing is done about it. Day knows that better than most coaches, as evidenced by this massive NIL offer to two of his players.
Of course, Ohio State probably does some tampering as well. With the rules this gray, they would be stupid not to do a little of it too. However, from what I've been told, they don't do it nearly to the degree of some other programs out there, such as Miami, Oregon, and TTUN.
NIL reform doesn't look like it's coming anytime soon. Coaches will have to keep fending off other programs for their guys.