Ryan Day: Enforcement is one of college football's biggest problems

Rules, or the lack thereof, are less of a problem in college sports rather than the overall lack of enforcement of those rules is according to Ohio State’s Ryan Day.

In an interview on ‘The Joel Klatt Show’ earlier this week, Day spoke with Klatt about offseason issues right now, including tampering. However, that led to this larger point about rules not even being enforced at all, which makes him wonder they’re even there to begin with.

“I’m just saying, in general, one of the biggest problems we have in college football right now is enforcement,” said Day. “And, again, I’m not talking about tampering. I’m just saying in general – any rule right now. Because the enforcement just isn’t there.”

“If you make a rule but you can’t enforce it then you have no structure,” Day said. “It’s not a rule.”

The worst part about that is then what he says it’s teaching to the next era of college athletics. There are coaches and players coming into the level that think this is what it is as far as rules and the breaking of them.

“I think there’s a generation right now of young coaches that are coming up in this profession that are saying, you know, why do I follow the rules, you know?” Day thought. “Integrity, sure. We all have integrity. But there needs to start becoming some sort of penalties for breaking the rules. Otherwise, you know, I don’t know. We’re just going to have a generation of young coaches that just see what’s going on across college football and continue to do that and have a disregard for any rule.”

“We’re putting these band-aids and patches and different things on them and we continue to move on and that’s fine. The product is great. But, you know, I just – I said this a few years ago. I want to look up in a few years and not recognize what’s going on but I think we still have an obligation to do things with integrity and to raise young men to do things the right way in this profession,” said Day. “I just think that that’s of upmost importance.”

This is an overall issue when it comes to the NCAA with Day seeing much to do in how they all handle it moving forward.

“So, now, again, I’m not just talking about tampering. I’m just saying, in general,” said Day. “Again, I’m not just talking about one rule. I’m just saying in general and I think the structure has to be looked at across the board.”