Urban Meyer is officially back on the job, and will address the media shortly at his weekly Monday press conference.
However, before that event even starts, we’re hearing a lot more from Meyer about the Zach Smith controversy, as well as his suspension.
ESPN released the second portion of their interview with Meyer on Monday morning.
If you missed the first segment on Sunday, you can get a full recap and watch it here.
In a fuller version of the interview released on Monday, Meyer says he has not spoken with Zach Smith’s ex-wife Courtney in years.
“I was never really close with Courtney, the family,” Meyer said. “When the investigation took place, I was told to stand down and not get involved.”
Meyer said his involvement was limited to Zach Smith’s performance at work, which slipped as his relationship with his wife deteriorated into divorce.
“I made a commitment to try to help. Obviously, I look back now and I went too far to try to help someone,” Meyer said.
Meyer said that his wife Shelley never told him about allegations that Zach Smith had been physically abusing Courtney.
“Nothing about allegations of abuse,” Meyer said. “I do recall her concern about the children and a very messy divorce that was going on.”
Meyer said that athletic director Gene Smith informed him about allegations of abuse in 2015.
“The athletic director came up to me on the practice field and said that there was a domestic issue between Zach and Courtney. I was very upset and I said, ‘what do I need to do?’ And he said, ‘Nothing. Let the investigation go on. You can’t get involved in this. We’ll update you and we’ll let you know.’ And I saw Zach Smith and so did Gene Smith, and I said, ‘If there’s any domestic violence in this, you’re fired immediately. Do you understand that?’ And he said, ‘Yes. Coach, I never did that, I never would do that. We’re getting divorced and this is about our children.'”
Meyer said that in retrospect, he should have fired Zach Smith after the 2015 allegations.
“It would have been a hard thing to do, but I would have fired him,” Meyer said.
He cited a lack of charges against Zach Smith, and the reports he was getting personally as the reason he would have viewed it as a difficult choice.
Meyer said that his comments at Big Ten Media Days may have played a role in how big the scandal got.
“I think there was a perception that I tried to mislead people. That I tried to not be forthright about everything I knew about the Zach Smith/Courtney Smith situation, which was not the case at all,” Meyer said.
Meyer was also asked about a line in the official report from Ohio State that said there was concern that the media might be able to gain access to his phone through Freedom of Information Act requests.
“My comment was, ‘I don’t worry about what’s on my phone. There’s nothing there that I’m worried about,” Meyer said.
He was also asked about a line in the report that said that he asked a football staffer if it was possible to delete texts older than one year off of his phone.
“I made it very clear that I did not delete messages off of my phone. I also made it clear that I don’t understand how to change the setting on my phone,” Meyer said.
You can watch the entire segment below.
I believe Meyer has been pilloried unfairly for his overlooking all the Zack Smith red flags but remember this all started with his disingenuous responses at Big Ten Media Day.
I’m disappointed that he continues to speak on the subject. He asks his players to focus 100% on the game ahead and he should do the same.
This he said, she said nonsense benefits no one but the press looking for another headline.
Fred- I think you and I are mostly on the same page. The media have fixated on the DV portion of this fiasco. The real problem, however, is that this did NOT start with Meyer’s lies at Media Day (that’s what they were, and he wasn’t lying only to media- he was lying to fans via the media). It actually started when Meyer decided to allow Smith to continue employment for YEARS when any number of his misbehaviors OUTSIDE of DV should have seen him fired. Meyer is suffering from the law of unintended consequences. He may have thought he did what was required regarding possible DV, but there’s no way in the world he acted appropriately in allowing Smith to remain on staff after multiple egregious transgressions. Meyer was turning a blind eye to other misbehavior and it bit him- period. Smith should have been canned years ago, and if he had been, none of this maelstrom happens.
Rinaldi is an arrogant condescending prick. Look at his body language and facial expressions throughout this interview. He looks more like Urbans dad dressing him down for not mowing the grass than a journalist asking questions. Evidently the media wants to make sure Urban doesn’t have an ounce of skin left on his ass. I guess the medias job is to chastise and condemn in addition to reporting their version of reality.
If there are any ball gags left from Smith’s toy orders that came to the university, the HC needs one inserted in his mouth NOW. This does NOT make things better. ‘it would have been a hard thing to do, but I would have fired him”? Really? WRONG. He didn’t fire him, so it wouldn’t have been a “hard” thing to do – it was never a consideration. THIS is the kind of crap that gives media and the naysayers fuel! Jeesh. Can he distract from the team any more? Ego overdrive.