Urban Meyer will be back on the sideline when Ohio State plays Tulane in Week 4. He has been with the team during practices for the last two weeks, while offensive coordinator Ryan Day has coached the team in games, including a big Week 3 win over TCU.
Urban Meyer is digging in his heels, and he’s still not focused on Courtney Smith
An ESPN interview reveals little change in Meyer’s attitude.
Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports
The morning after that game, ESPN aired an interview with Meyer, the coach’s first time facing any media since a press conference the day OSU suspended him, Aug. 22.
The most important question lands with a thud from Tom Rinaldi, and then deafening silence from Ohio State’s head coach before his answer.
Rinaldi:
“When it comes to the program’s core value of treating women with respect, who respected and protected Courtney Smith?”
Meyer:
“That’s a tough question. Now that all the information’s out — now that I’ve learned more. If I fire him at the time, sever that relationship, and I see these two young kids — that’s the way I’ve always thought — how do you help stabilize something? And at the time I thought I was doing the right thing.”
Meyer reiterated the tried and true coaching staple of always believing the best in a troubled subordinate, and sticking with them throughout their struggles to a point.
And that point comes at a different line for everyone. Where the line is drawn might have a lot to do with the talent of the individual. But Meyer and Smith’s relationship had the factor of familial loyalty, with Meyer having been mentored by Smith’s grandfather Earle Bruce.
Meyer is still sticking to a story that he met with both Zach Smith and his accuser, now ex-wife Courtney Smith, following Zach’s 2009 arrest in Florida.
Courtney had accused Zach of domestic abuse when Zach worked on Meyer’s Florida Gators staff. Meyer has said before, and now said again to Rinaldi, that he met with the couple. At the end of his ESPN interview, he asserts that “both parties came to see me.”
It is still a claim that does not hold up, primarily because Ohio State’s public investigative report says:
Courtney Smith denies ever meeting with Urban Meyer, although she recalls meeting with Shelley Meyer at that time. Courtney Smith maintains that she has never recanted her allegations to anyone. Zach Smith also recalls that only he met with Urban Meyer, but that Courtney Smith did not.
We find it more likely that only Zach Smith met with Coach Meyer in 2009, and that Courtney Smith likely did not recant her allegations of abuse at that time to Urban or Shelley Meyer, although it is clear that Courtney Smith decided not to pursue charges and that none were ever filed.
Whether he is misremembering that meeting or outright lying, it appears he is wrong and that Courtney Smith didn’t have any part in a 2009 meeting with Meyer.
Meyer says it was a “bad decision” to hire Smith in 2012, when the head coach returned to coaching at Ohio State after a year off.
He says Smith had been given high marks in the background checks he did before bringing him to Columbus.
Meyer did not tell OSU athletic director Gene Smith about Zach’s 2009 arrest, and says that “in hindsight I should have,” but did not have an answer for why he didn’t, saying he couldn’t recall why he didn’t, and that he didn’t know what his mindset was at the time.
OSU’s report says Meyer “has explained that he did not do so because no charges were filed and because he believed Zach Smith had not engaged in domestic violence in 2009.”
Rinaldi has Meyer recite his two core values: “Honesty is number 1, and respect women number 2.”
Before Meyer can fully answer a follow-up question as to how highly he still holds those values, Rinaldi importantly cuts him off because Meyer said he apologizes “for the perception that I don’t [hold the two values high].”
Perception is not why Meyer was suspended. Only when Rinaldi specifically asks, “What about the action?” does Meyer apologize “also for the actions. It was a very tough time, a tough situation that Courtney was in, that Zach Smith was in.”
Meyer says he erred in the decision he made to help stabilize the situation and that he should have fired Smith earlier than he did.
While the interview is largely rehashing, it covers important ground in the case and shows something important.
Meyer has an entrenched position on what he thinks happened between Courtney and Zach Smith and his role in perpetuating it, and the other ways he dealt with the situation. That position may change in time, but is hasn’t yet. That leads one to believe it probably won’t.
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