A potentially monumental day in Ohio State football history is coming up sometime this week as the school determines the future of head coach Urban Meyer. The big question is when.
The independent working group investigating Meyer’s role in the Zach Smith controversy has now completed its investigation.
Friday, the University confirmed that process would wrap up over the weekend. That has presumably now happened.
Now, the group is preparing a report of its findings to deliver to the school.
That report will just be a statement of facts and evidence. It won’t include any recommendations about what should be done with those findings.
At this point, it’s likely that report is still being finalized.
Once the report is done, Ohio State’s Board of Trustees will meet to discuss the findings.
The board is made up of 20 people, including former Buckeye basketball great Clark Kellogg, Ohio business leaders like Abigail Wexner, Timothy Smucker and Cheryl Krueger, and one undergraduate and one graduate student from OSU.
By law, those meetings are a matter of public record. The Board is required to provide 24 hours’ notice before they convene. As of Monday at noon, they have not yet provided that notice.
You can monitor their website to see when that meeting is actually scheduled. That is the next big benchmark in the process.
While you’ve probably seen lots of speculation and reports about how a decision has already been made, there won’t be a decision before the Board meets. And the Board can’t meet until they provide 24 hours’ notice.
Once the meeting is scheduled and then convened, the Board will go into Executive Session. That means the meeting is only open to members of the board, and not the media or public.
According to the press release sent out by OSU on Friday, the Board will discuss the findings in the report and discuss what should be done.
After that discussion, and what the school calls “appropriate time for consideration” OSU President Michael Drake will announce his decision.
The 24-hour notice rule means that the Board of Trustees meeting can’t happen before sometime late Tuesday. That means the earliest you could possibly hear an announcement on Meyer’s future is Tuesday night.
More likely, it would come sometime on Wednesday or perhaps even Thursday.
The big tipoff will come when the Board of Trustees schedules its meeting. Once that happens, a final decision will likely be just a day or two away.
UPDATE: The executive session has been scheduled for Wednesday morning at 9:00 am.
The Ohio State Board of Trustees executive session to discuss the Urban Meyer situation is scheduled for Wednesday at 9 a.m. There’s still no clarity on when a final decision will come, but that’s the next step that needs to happen. The investigation ended Sunday.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) August 20, 2018
Why is the onus on urban meyer? Doesent he have enough on his mind running the team? Must he also be marriage counselor, protecter, and investigated in marital affairs, this is utter foolishness, good God, what is the world coming to,PC at its worst.
Dan, AMEN!
Don’t be stupid Drake. Get Urban back on the field unless there is some type of tangible evidence which implicates him. Not allegations or second hand information but real evidence. If there is nothing more than what the media has beaten to death over the last three weeks then this is a no brainer. What really drives me nuts is that if Ohio State had fired the loser three years ago, we would have never heard the name Zach or Courtney Smith ever again. But again, how do you fire someone without ever being charged, arrested, or prosecuted for a crime? He could still be home beating the shit out of her and the media would’ve never wasted a second on their story ever again. If the true intent according to the media and her lawyer was to protect the victim, then tell me how firing him makes him all of a sudden stop abusing her assuming he ever did in the first place? Was Ohio State supposed to hire security and a 24 hour protective detail for her for the rest of her life? But had Ohio State just fired the idiot three years ago, we’re not at this critical juncture today regardless of anything Zach Smith ever did again. But Ohio State is probably looking at a wrongful termination lawsuit. This is going to be interesting. Hang on everybody.
Why do you say “he could still be at home beating the shit out of her” when he never has beat the shit out of her. He’s done just about every other hateful thing a man can do to his wife, and he is a scumbag, and whatever happens to him i won’t feel a bit sorry for him,….but he never beat her. She takes pics of every little red mark on her arms from him holding her back in self defense – don’t you think she would have pics of black eyes, bruises, etc. if he had actually hit her?
What seems most obvious is that the ex Mrs. Smith and her “muckraker” scribe friend have a carefully planned campaign to cause as much disruption as possible. The only place the “muckraker” could have found his alleged latest sex evidence is through her. Given that all of this purported activity took place years ago, how is it that the “muckraker” sees fit to delay the release of the alleged activities so late in the investigative process after his weeks earlier report. It seems like mother and mother-in-law know her best.
First, no matter the outcome, there will be people complaining. This is a no win for OSU and Urban. This is one big mess caused by Zach and his ex. They both have issues.
As OSU fans are sent from the family waiting area into the waiting room waiting for the surgeon to enter. Things are now getting very tense. We’ve been asked to wait about another 15 minutes in this analogy. During this time, our minds float back and forth and emotions sway. Maybe being foolishly optimistic, I tend to see Urban coaching with time already served. There’s a reason to me that Day is coaching, if Urban didn’t think of his return he would of made a seamless move, have a former head coach do that as there are two on staff. National media like Paul F., ESPN and even USAT have all lamented Urban’s return if only by razor thin margins. (That’s what they say!) The media gave another scare with the revelation of Zach’s childish and foolish behavior at The White House a few years ago. The doctor is taking no more time than originally stated, it’s just that the doctor is given some other opinions. I may be wrong and may need to have some extra tissues. However, there may be many when they hear this news, need medicines to calm their hysteria!
Seems reasonable that the University’s lawyers would want no part of setting precedents that put coaching staffs into the marriage counseling business. This story is just another “ugly” divorce scenario that happens all the time.
If Urban gets fired I am divorcing myself from Ohio State sports. At some point “The Ohio State University” needs to tell the media to pound sand.
Real people are not perfect people. The media destroyed Zack Smith’s life and Urban Meyer may be next. Why do we give the media this much power?
Courtney Smith says that her expectations, whether that applies to 2015 incident or the 2018 incident, was that Meyer should have helped her. Given Meyer’s only legal recourse at any given moment was to fire Zach Smith, and once he was fired, Meyer would have very little else he could do. Any expectations beyond that would be as a friend and not an OSU employee. I think it is reasonable to assume the only motivation that could be determined from what we know is to get her husband fired. And I fail to see how that “helps” her or her family. Any other type of “help” would be outside the scope of the head football coach.
I have a bad feeling on this one… it just doesn’t take all this to reinstate a guy. This seems like a build up to an unjust firing. Right now between Gene Smith and Drake we have the worst leadership one could imagine.
Unjust it would be karma. He should of never got a job after UF and all the scandals there