Ohio State football is about to change forever

College football has gone through a lot of changes in the last ten years. From the introduction of the Playoff, to expansion, to NIL, a lot has happened in the past decade. A lot has changed with the Ohio State football program too. They won the first College Football Playoff and won the national title with Cardale Jones as their quarterback.

Ohio State has done the best that they can to adapt. They’ve embraced NIL in the last couple of years. How they approach scheduling in the Playoff era has changed as well. It’s about to change even more now that the NCAA is in the middle of litigation that is likely to get settled sometime soon.

Ohio State football and college football at large is about to change forever

Due to ongoing litigation, college football players are about to be categorized as employees within the next five years. That means that kids will be signing contracts to play for a school. That also means that school will become even more of an afterthought than it is right now. Kids won’t care about their degree. They’ll only care about how much money they’re making.

Kids becoming employees also changes the dynamics of recruiting. Recruiting will no longer come down to who has the best facilities or who has the best tradition of getting talent into the NFL. It will come down to who is giving them the most money in a contract. It is about to become semi-pro football instead of college football.

The Ohio State football team has done a good job of pivoting at every step in this evolving process. They will be one of the programs that will be able to survive and thrive in this new era once it gets here. Ryan Day will need to keep evolving his coaching practice for the new generations.