Urban Meyer Suspended by Ohio State for 3 Games

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Urban Meyer, the famed football coach at Ohio State University, has been suspended for three games after a university investigation found fault with the way he handled the case of an assistant coach accused of domestic violence.

The decision, a blow to a powerhouse team with a rabid following and a highly revered coach, came after a marathon private meeting of the university’s board of trustees that stretched close to nine hours on Wednesday. As the meeting wrapped up, a group of fans stormed the building in which it was held, chanting support for Meyer.

Against the backdrop of a nationwide, intensifying focus on addressing abuse of women, the board decided that Meyer’s missteps in the case did not rise to a cover-up but warranted punishment.

The board deliberated extensively over how many games Meyer should miss and painstakingly reviewed the report that had been prepared by investigators, and it brought Meyer and others in for questioning, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was a confidential session.

Meyer was also suspended, without pay, for the remainder of the preseason — crucial preparation time for college teams. He will miss the season opener against Oregon State on Sept. 1, as well as games against Rutgers and, perhaps most significantly, Texas Christian, a top-20 team. He will, however, be permitted to work with the team outside of games beginning Sept. 2.

Ohio State’s athletic director, Gene Smith, was also suspended without pay, from Aug. 31 to Sept. 16.

“Their handling of this matter did not exhibit the kind of leadership and high standards that we expect of our athletic director, head coach, assistant coaches and all on the football staff,” a university statement said.

Meyer, one of the most successful coaches in the sport — he won national championships with Ohio State in 2014 and with Florida in 2006 and 2008 — appeared somber at a news conference and suggested that his loyalty to the assistant coach, Zach Smith, who was fired last month, had clouded his judgment.

Later in the evening, Ohio State released a 23-page summary of the findings of the investigation. The summary casts Zach Smith as something of a ticking time bomb. It also makes clear that Meyer kept Smith on, despite not only off-field troubles but a decline in his coaching performance, out of loyalty to Smith’s grandfather, Earle Bruce, a former Ohio State coach and longtime mentor of Meyer’s who died in April 2018.

“I followed my heart, not my head,” Meyer said. “As I reflect, my loyalty to his grandfather Earle Bruce, who was my mentor, likely impacted how I treated Zach over the years.”

Meyer has been on paid administrative leave since Aug. 1 after allegations surfaced that Meyer knew Smith had been accused of domestic violence since 2015, when the accusations were made. Meyer said in July that he had just learned of the case, but after being put on leave he released a statement saying he had misspoken and had “followed proper reporting protocols and procedures” after learning of the incident in 2015. Smith was fired in July.

The university’s report said Meyer “did not deliberately lie.” The report said that Meyer had learned of the domestic abuse case from Gene Smith, the athletic director, and that they had monitored the case for months without following university protocol to inform other officials.

The report, written by the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Jo White and her team from the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, found that Meyer had acted in “good faith” in not reporting the allegations, but his actions were ultimately “not sufficient,” White said at a news conference on Wednesday following the board meeting.

Smith’s lawyer, Brad Koffel, released a statement Wednesday evening: “Zach Smith married a woman he should not have married. Vengeance against her ex-husband regrettably resulted in collateral damage to Urban Meyer, Gene Smith and the Ohio State University. Trying cases in the media is a dangerous precedent for every other coach in America.”

Meyer arrived midmorning to the site of the board’s meeting, the Longaberger Alumni House just across from the football complex. His wife, Shelley, showed up hours later. And in the late afternoon, some eight hours after the meeting began, Smith entered the building.

As evening approached, the clamor of football practice nearby could be heard under the direction of an interim coach, Ryan Day.

The saga began in earnest on July 23, when Zach Smith was fired after the independent journalist Brett McMurphy reported on Facebook that Smith’s wife, Courtney, had requested a protection order against him. He also reported that Smith had been accused of domestic violence in 2009, when he was an assistant to Meyer at Florida, and in 2015, when they were both at Ohio State.

Courtney Smith, who is now divorced from Zach Smith, had said that Shelley Meyer had extensive knowledge of the abuse allegations in 2015, McMurphy reported. Courtney Smith’s story was supported by text messages, according to the report.

A week earlier, at a news conference for the Big Ten Conference, Urban Meyer said that he had known of the 2009 accusations and that he and his wife had talked with the Smiths after a police investigation. But when confronted with questions about the 2015 allegations during the news conference, Meyer said he had learned of the accusations only the night before.

The following week, he retracted that denial, saying in his statement that he had failed to be “clear, compassionate and, most of all, completely accurate” in his previous comments.

Meyer, who has also coached at Bowling Green and Utah, is entering his seventh year at Ohio State and has a career coaching record of 177-31, with an 11-3 record in bowl games.

At Florida, along with the national championships came a string of players who had trouble with the law. He left the university in 2010, citing health and family reasons, but was hired a year later by Ohio State when the team was reeling from a tattoos for cash scandal.

He righted the team quickly, going undefeated in his first season, though the team was ineligible for the postseason that year, and then won the national title in his third. He has not lost more than two games in any of his six seasons in Columbus. Ohio State’s revival has been mirrored by the rise of the Big Ten, which now rivals the Southeastern Conference as the best in the country.

Meyer is set to make $7.6 million this season, among the highest salaries for college football coaches, and his contract runs through 2022. Because of his suspension, he will forgo six weeks of compensation.

Ohio State has also been embroiled in a scandal over sex abuse: More than 100 former students have said that Richard H. Strauss, a former university employee and team doctor, had sexually abused them. Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, was an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State while Strauss was there and has faced questions about what he knew. He has denied knowledge of the allegations.

An assistant diving coach has also been accused of being involved in an abusive relationship with a teenage athlete.