Ryan Day identifies issues facing college athletes: Guns, gambling, speeding

A number of contemporary off-the-field issues in college sports, particularly football, reared their head in the last 12 months. And Ohio State head coach Ryan Day highlighted a trio of behaviors that seem to particularly lead to problems.

Those things: Guns, sports gambling and dangerous driving. Day shared a brief bit on how all three can derail things, and discussed how he and his staff push players to keep on the straight and narrow.

“So, we could name a list of about 50 of them, but it seems like those three, right now, are the ones that come up on your phone the most right now. So, you try to do the best you can to talk to the guys about that, to make sure they’re avoiding some of those things,” Day said.

Some of the issues have been self-evident, if not tied to the Ohio State program.

The instances of speeding and dangerous driving around the Georgia football program are well documented at this point but it’s not exclusive to the Bulldogs. When he was still at Florida, quarterback Anthony Richardson was caught speeding going 105 miles per hour in a 60 mph zone in 2022.

Sports wager investigations at both the college and professional levels have led to suspensions and, in certain cases, people losing their jobs. The most notorious of the college betting scandals so far is the Alabama baseball betting incident, but a number of schools — including Iowa and Iowa State — are being investigated for sports wagering.

Gun violence has recently hit home for the Ohio State program. Recently, freshman receiver Carnell Tate’s mother was killed in a shooting. Day reflected on that tragedy when discussing these vices.

“The three areas that I’ve identified, one, the guns. There are shootings constantly across the country and in Columbus. We just lost Carnell’s mom. So it’s just something that I talk to our guys about all the time,” Day said. “The second one is gambling. You look at that, right now across the country we just saw somebody else, I think in the NFL, get suspended. That’s a big deal. And then speeding. Getting behind the wheel of a car and going too fast or getting themselves in accidents.”

And it’s a safe bet Day is going to keep tabs on what might lead his players astray while they’re away from the facility or worse, cause them or others harm.

“You try to identify the areas that are like the hotspots, the hot tickets, the things that are causing the most problems for everybody across the country,” Day said.