Ohio State coach Ryan Day was in a meeting on Aug. 23 when he heard about an unprecedented player acquisition.
ESPN reported Dae’Quan Wright, a rookie tight end with the Cleveland Browns, had an agreement in place to return to college football at LSU if he cleared waivers in the NFL.
“We are certainly in a different world right now,” Day said.
Wright’s potential move is part of the fallout from the NCAA’s new eligibility rules, which were adopted earlier this summer and grant Division I players a five-year window from their enrollment to play for schools.
But the model's implementation left out players from the class of 2022 who exhausted their eligibility in four seasons, prompting Wright and others to seek temporary restraining orders restoring
their fifth year.
The court rulings have provided fallback options for the players cut by NFL teams and those who were without invitations to preseason training camps, but they will also require college teams to consider possible roster additions less than two weeks before most open their seasons.
That includes Ohio State, and even if Day lamented the latest upheaval to the college sports landscape, he acknowledged the Buckeyes would evaluate their options.
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“If there are teams that have some players who are cut from NFL rosters, that are going to be on other teams, we have to at least consider it and look at it,” Day said. “Do I like anything about it? Absolutely not.
“But we have to do what’s right for Ohio State, so it’s sort of a day-to-day thing right now. Like anything, we’re just going to try to adapt. But I think we’d all agree, maybe not everybody, that there has to be a certain point where your roster gets locked in.”
Day said he has had conversations with Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti about the latest disruption and contended that conferences should set deadlines for members to finalize their rosters.
Even if Day found the possibility of NFL players returning to college rather bizarre, it isn’t the first time he’s been through changes to the sport.
Since taking over the Buckeyes in 2019, Day has seen college football undergo a seismic transformation, from NIL and revenue sharing to unrestricted player movement through the transfer portal.
But the latest disruption was concerning nonetheless.
“I told myself I would stop saying this is crazy,” Day said, “but to think that we're in a situation where we're this late in the season and our rosters are not locked in is frustrating at the very least.”
Joey Kaufman covers Ohio State football for The Columbus Dispatch. Email him at jkaufman@dispatch.com and follow him on @joeyrkaufman on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ryan Day on NFL players returning to college: 'We are certainly in a different world'
