Many Ohio State fans think that the team has been free of those high-profile NCAA violations. But for a program that has meticulously avoided the NCAA spotlight since ‘Tattoogate,’ a new report of three violations under Ryan Day—however minor—proves that staying clean in college football is a constant battle.

According to reports, Ohio State has self-reported three minor NCAA violations this year. The violations include using a student manager who wasn’t enrolled in the program, a violation of social media posting rules, and conducting workouts for an injured player. Since the violations are self-reported and minor, they will carry nominal penalties. But OSU has taken every precaution and educated all the individuals involved in the violations.

The first violation involving the student manager occurred last summer. He was a former enrollee at one of Ohio State’s regional campuses, and his duties included managing the team’s clock operation. After the infraction came to light, the team removed the student manager and introduced enrollment tracking services for its managers.

“The (equipment) staff believed the individual involved would be enrolling at the main campus for the fall 2025 term and permitted him to commence performing traditional managerial duties,” the report obtained by Dispatch read.

The second violation occurred in January last year, when a player participated in OSU’s strength and conditioning program before he received medical clearance. However, soon after the violation came to light, OSU’s medical staff halted his workouts and cleared the athlete the same day. For now, the Columbus program is re-examining its medical clearance process to prevent such infractions in the future.

As for the third violation, a Buckeyes assistant had shared the announcement of a player committing to the program. Since the assistant’s social media post came before the player had officially committed through the portal, it constituted an NCAA violation. The program remedied it by deleting the social media post and providing educational services to the assistant. Regardless, this isn’t the first time Ohio State has self-reported NCAA violations.

Ryan Day is learning from Jim Tressel’s oversights in keeping a clean record

Ohio State’s last major NCAA violation was the 2011 tattogate scandal that involved eight OSU players. The NCAA accused the players of receiving impermissible benefits from a local tattoo parlor, as they sold or traded team memorabilia for cash or for free or discounted tattoos. The NCAA came down hard, primarily because of head coach Jim Tressel’s omission. Jim Tressel had learned of the violations early in April 2010 via email and didn’t report them, leading to a post-season ban and the vacating of all 12 wins from the 2010 season.

But now, Ohio State is learning from its past mistakes and, unlike Jim Tressel, the program reports the NCAA violations time and again. Between 2017 and 2019, the Buckeyes reported 16 football-related self-reports, including impermissible text messages and phone calls to recruits. Apart from that, OSU also reported violations of exceeding scholarship limits, impermissible promotions, and minor extra benefits.

“Many of these violations are small in scale and routinely reported to the NCAA, but a few did damage Ohio State’s efforts on the recruiting trail after the NCAA intervened with punishment,” 247 Sports reported. Despite that, the Buckeyes were taken one scholarship off at the NCAA’s discretion, and Urban Meyer also agreed to stop recruiting Penn State star Micah Parsons, in addition to being barred from contacting recruits for 6 days.

Even two years back, the program had reported four NCAA violations, but they were largely Level III infractions, resulting in minuscule penalties. Maybe because of OSU’s self-reporting strategy, the program has managed to avoid any scandal since 2011, even as widespread tampering and sign-stealing reports have emerged in college football. Maybe OSU’s rivals, Michigan, ought to do the same, considering they want to clean the house now.