Ryan Day shares how NIL has changed recruiting strategy

NIL is still a relatively new change, but it’s no longer brand new, and coaches like Ryan Day at Ohio State are working to adjust to it as well as possible.

While at Big Ten Media Days, Day shared his perspective on how NIL has changed his recruiting strategy. In doing so, he emphasized that Ohio State doesn’t want to take players focused on NIL but that it adds another layer to recruiting.

“The number one thing is wanting to be a Buckeye,” Ryan Day said. “Understanding the tradition, what our city can do, what our program can do, how we can develop you, playing for championships, all those things. If the number one thing is NIL, it probably isn’t the right place for you.”

None of that is to say Ryan Day and Ohio State don’t use NIL. They do. It’s just that NIL isn’t the focus of recruiting pitches.

“That being said, it’s providing some of the recruits more opportunities than there were in the past,” Day said. “We are seeing some different trends, and I don’t know if that has to do with NIL, or the world getting smaller, or whatever it might be — the expansion of these conferences. It would be an interesting study to do, but I know it allows us an opportunity to provide resources for some of these guys on our team that we weren’t able to in the past.”

Ohio State has several collectives that work with the football program. That includes The Foundation, The 1870 Society, and Cohesion Foundation. It’s an active group, but there are other schools that are also active and are going to take different strategies in recruiting.

“I think the thing that’s tricky at a place like Ohio State. Let’s just say you’re recruiting wide receivers, for example,” Day said. “Brian [Hartline] has done a great job. You sign three guys. Well, you would like three five-star recruits. That’s not always gonna be the case anymore because of the way things are. So, you have to find the right value and the right slots for each guy.”

Amid NIL changes, Ohio State has still been excellent in recruiting. The Buckeyes 2024 class was ranked fourth in that cycle by the On3 Industry Rankings. Now, in the 2025 cycle with time for things to change, Ryan Day has put together what is currently the second-ranked class.

“Ultimately, you have to have a roster of 85 guys, and who knows what this is gonna look like in the next couple of years with the scholarship numbers, but you have to make sure you’re identifying the right people and it’s not just unlimited,” Day said.

“So, you have to find value at certain positions and sometimes there may be some guys that we’re gonna bring in that maybe we wouldn’t have brought in in certain years from different parts of the country but there’s also some guys we may not have recruited who fit the role of a developmental guy that may not see the field for two to three years because maybe his NIL value is lower than somebody else.”