Ohio State placed coach Urban Meyer on paid administrative leave Wednesday after a blockbuster report surfaced earlier in the day by longtime college football reporter Brett McMurphy on the alleged abuse by former Buckeyes receivers coach Zach Smith on his now ex-wife, Courtney Smith.
WETZEL: Meyer should be fired if allegations are true
NOON: Meyer placed on leave
There are so many questions now to answer - and this investigation will determine the fate of Meyer’s coaching career in Columbus and his legacy in the sport.
According to McMurphy, he obtained text messages and pictures of Courtney Smith, who said she had talks with Meyer’s wife, Shelley, in 2015 about the abuse she had suffered and that “every single one” of the Ohio State coaches’ wives knew about Zach Smith’s actions.
In an interview with Stadium on Wednesday, Courtney Smith said she sent Shelley Meyer pictures of the alleged abuse and spoke to her on the phone and that Meyer said she was going to have to tell Urban. Smith told Shelley it was fine to tell Urban Meyer and that she should.
At Big Ten Media Days last week, one day after firing Smith following another domestic incident in May, Meyer said he was not made aware of the 2015 incident. There was another domestic violence situation in 2009 that Meyer admitted knowledge of when the two worked together at Florida.
Meyer’s defense seems to be singular: He was never told of the 2015 incident by his wife, who has always been a close partner and a regular around the football program, and since he did not know what happened in the Smith’s household, he cannot be held accountable.
As far as we know now, Courtney Smith never personally reached out to Urban Meyer, only Shelley.
We also must believe that if “every single one” of the other coaches’ wives knew about the alleged abuse, that some of them at least must have shared that knowledge with their husbands, who work in the same offices as Meyer. To believe that none of those coaches passed along that information to Meyer or that there weren’t significant and serious whispers about Smith’s actions that would trickle back to Meyer is hard to fathom.
Are there text messages between Urban and Shelley Meyer about this? Between Urban Meyer and anyone in the Smith family? Urban Meyer and anyone on his staff? Those close to Meyer and anyone in the Smith family? Anyone on his staff and the Smith family? That will be figured out through this investigation.
To believe Meyer, and for Meyer to probably keep his job as Ohio State’s coach, the university has to be convinced through this investigation that Meyer in no way, shape or form had any knowledge of the 2015 incident. If Meyer did, then the university has to square itself with the idea that it’s employing a coach who had knowledge of an assistant who was a repeat domestic abuser, or at the very least alleged of those actions.
This does not look good for Meyer, who ran a program at Florida rife with off-the-field issues. I know because I covered the team for three years and there have been numerous in-depth investigative reports about what was going on in Gainesville during those years. That is not to say Urban Meyer knew of the 2015 incident and that he might not be cleared in this situation.
But it does not look good.
If Shelley Meyer, who works at Ohio State in the College of Nursing, believed Courtney Smith’s allegations (and there’s no reason through those text message exchanges that she didn’t) and didn’t tell her husband, that’s just beyond belief. Can an argument be made? Sure. Shelley Meyer has always been concerned about her husband’s stress levels especially after Urban Meyer was admitted to the hospital after the 2009 SEC Championship Game with chest pains. Did she not want to overburden him? Who knows? But it’s hard to even contemplate.
I’m a married man. Lots of people reading this are married. Could we possibly fathom a situation - especially at the high level Urban Meyer plays in life - where our wives wouldn’t inform us of something so terrible happening with one of our co-workers, one we’re responsible for from a public relations standpoint, and one so insular as in a college football program?
To believe Urban Meyer, one must swallow the idea that he never was told by anyone - his wife, his assistant coaches, their wives, anyone involved with the program - about Smith’s 2015 incident. That he was as shockingly surprised of all of this as anyone else - even with his wife trading text messages with Courtney Smith. That’s also to believe, however, that Courtney Smith did tell all the coaches’ wives as she stated Wednesday, although no evidence of those communications has been presented.
If one does not believe Meyer's statement at Media Days, everything else is in play. He was told about the 2015 incident by his wife, or any of his assistants, or their wives, or anyone inside the program. And he chose not to act on it. He chose to keep Zach Smith on staff, now knowing of two instances of alleged domestic abuse in 2009 and 2015.
Wednesday evening, ESPN college football commentator Rece Davis said usually when a coach is put on paid administrative leave it’s the first step toward negotiating a way for Meyer to leave. David Pollack said he does not believe Meyer will be at Ohio State any longer.
Preseason camp starts later this week. Ohio State, which has College Football Playoff potential, opens its season Sept. 1.
I have no idea if Urban Meyer knew about the 2015 incident. I don’t know if Shelley Meyer told him. I don’t know if there was chatter in the building. I don’t know if everyone just shut their mouth so as to not upset the apple cart that is Ohio State football. In abuse cases, lots of times people look the other way.
But I do know this is horrible public relations. And that any serious investigation will be able to sort out all of these questions in a reasonable amount of time.
If it’s found that Urban Meyer had any shred of knowledge about the 2015 incident, he’s gone. If he was never told or shown the text messages by his wife, Shelley, then why the hell not?
