Meyer was suspended for three games and Smith suspended from Aug. 31-Sept. 16 without pay following an investigation into how they handled domestic abuse allegations against former assistant coach Zach Smith.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Following 10 hours of deliberation between the university president and the board of trustees, with a group of fans, students and well-wishers outside of Longaberger Alumni House growing in attendance throughout the day hoping to see Ohio State football be allowed to proceed as normal, the university handed down a punishment to head coach Urban Meyer that will delay that return to normalcy and leaves to question whether things can ever been the same for a coach who holds a hall of fame resume.
Meyer was suspended for three games on Wednesday night, and athletic director Gene Smith suspended for three weeks without pay following the university's investigation into how both handled domestic abuse allegations against former assistant coach Zach Smith in 2015.
It turns out the scope of the investigation, though, went beyond that, looking into how business in general was conducted in Meyer's program, particularly as it related to Zach Smith. A comprehensive 23-page report detailed Smith's personal transgressions beyond domestic abuse allegations and painted the picture of a troubled assistant coach shirking his responsibilities and behaving in a manner unbecoming of someone in that position.
"Although neither Urban Meyer nor Gene Smith condoned or covered up the alleged domestic abuse by Zach Smith, they failed to take sufficient management action relating to Zach Smith's misconduct and retained an assistant coach who was not performing as an appropriate role model for OSU student-athletes," the university said in a statement, summing up its reasons for Wednesday's decision.
Meyer, who had been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 1, will be suspended through Sept. 2, meaning he'll miss the season opener against Oregon State on Sept. 1. He can return to run practice after that, but will also be suspended from OSU's games on Sept. 8 against Rutgers and Sept. 15 against TCU. Meyer will also forgo six weeks of compensation.
Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Ryan Day, who's been serving as acting head coach during Meyer's leave, will retain that role during Meyer's suspension.
This is the price Meyer has to pay for letting Zach Smith go unchecked for six years before firing him on July 23.
"I followed my heart and not my head," Meyer said in a prepared statement Wednesday. "I fell short in pursuing full information because at each juncture I gave Zach Smith the benefit of the doubt. As I reflect, my loyalty to his grandfather Earle Bruce, who was a mentor and like a father to me, likely impacted how I treated Zach over the years. I did not know everything about Zach Smith, and I am pleased that the report made this very clear. However, I should have demanded more from him and recognized red flags."
What Meyer and Gene Smith knew, and whether they followed proper protocol in reporting the allegations against Zach Smith dominated most of the conversation and was the crux of the investigation. To that end, neither was found to violate any school policy other than misunderstanding the reporting requirements laid out in their respective employment contracts.
Both Meyer and Gene Smith became aware of the allegations against Zach Smith in October 2015. Gene Smith is required to report to the Office of University Compliance and Integrity. He did not. Meyer is required to report in writing to Gene Smith and to Athletic Compliance. He did not, though Gene Smith was aware of the allegations before Meyer was. According to the investigative report, instead of technically following proper protocol, both Meyer and Gene Smith believed that the related police investigation that ended without charges being brought against Zach Smith meant the incident did not trigger a responsibility to report.
The investigation determined that both "viewed the issue too narrowly through the lens of law enforcement action."
However that was only part of the cumulative reasons for punishment laid out by the university on Wednesday.
The report details personal transgressions on the part of Zach Smith that clashed with his role as an assistant football coach at Ohio State. That included a sexual relationship with a former football secretary in 2015, a $600 expenditure at a strip club during a recruiting trip to Florida in 2014, issues with drug and alcohol abuse including a 2013 citation for driving while intoxicated, showing up late for practices and meetings and not showing up for recruiting visits.
Neither Meyer nor Gene Smith were aware of all of those incidents, but each was aware of some and Gene Smith recommended Meyer replace Zach Smith on his staff in 2015. Meyer declined, and kept Zach Smith on for two more seasons before firing him on July 23 after Smith's ex-wife filed for an order of protection against him on July 20. Zach Smith is also facing a criminal trespass charge from an incident at his ex-wife's home in May 2018.
Meyer cited both of those recent legal issues, which weren't reported to him but instead found out through media reports, as the reasons for firing Zach Smith. Meyer deemed them a violation of the program's core value of honesty.
On the issue of Meyer's comments at Big Ten media days, when he at first seemed to deny any knowledge of domestic abuse allegations against Zach Smith in 2015, the investigation could not determine if Meyer was deliberately misleading or was in part confused by an erroneous report that Zach Smith had been arrested for domestic violence. Smith was never arrested or charged in the incident. The report also made mention of Meyer possibly being evasive out of loyalty to Bruce and because he was reticent to divulge what he deemed someone else's personal matters.
Records of text conversations show that Meyer was advised to avoid going into detail on the 2015 allegations at all. But his more definitive proclamations that he knew nothing, or never had any conversations about it put him on the path that led to Wednesday's decision.
"I want to state clearly that we believe Urban Meyer did not and does not condone domestic abuse," said OSU President Michael Drake, who made the final decision in consultation with the board. "However, he did fail to take sufficient management action regarding Zach Smith, he was not as complete an accurate at media days and did not not uphold the high standards and values of the university on that day."
Perhaps the most troubling revelation in the investigative report was a conversation between Meyer and director of football operations Brian Voltilini regarding changing the settings on Meyer's phone so that text messages more than a year old could not be accessed. That was in response to possible public records requests for Meyer's phone logs. When Meyer turned in his university-issued phone on Aug. 2, there were no text messages more than a year old, though the investigation could not determine if Meyer deleted any messages or when the settings on his phone were changed.
Nonetheless that likely played into a punitive decision that went beyond the "time served" punishment for Meyer that was floated out earlier this week before Drake and the board deliberated on the investigation.
Those reports, though, made some optimistic that Meyer perhaps could have been back on the practice field as early as Wednesday afternoon. The board's executive session began at 9 a.m., with Meyer arriving about 30 minutes later. Around 4:30 p.m. you could start to hear the sounds emanating from the football team's practice just across Olentangy River Road at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
Given what was made public before the full report was divulged, it wasn't a stretch that Meyer would be back in his position overseeing that practice by Thursday at the latest.
But as Wednesday's deliberations carried into the seventh hour and beyond, it became clear that this wasn't as cut and dry as how Meyer and Smith handled domestic allegations against a subordinate in 2015. It went beyond that, some of the sordid details showing the shocking extent of Meyer's blind spot for Zach Smith.
None of that may have risen to reason to fire Meyer with cause, or perhaps Ohio State simply didn't want to go down that road. Drake essentially dodged a question asking if termination was on the table for either Meyer or Gene Smith. Firing Meyer without cause would have cost Ohio State roughly $38 million. That's a hefty sum to pay for what would have amounted to firing someone for public relations reasons.
Instead the result was a middle ground between ending Meyer's tenure at Ohio State and reinstating him outright.
A month of practice, three games and six weeks of pay were the price for improper management of the allegations against Zach Smith three years ago, for his words at Big Ten media days, and for failures in letting a troubled assistant coach run amok in his program for six years.
