Breaking: Urban Meyer knew of Zach Smith's Domestic Violence record as far back as 2015
https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1024661186976141312
Per Brett McMurphy:
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Text messages I have obtained, an exclusive interview with the victim and other information I have learned shows Ohio State coach Urban Meyer knew in 2015 of domestic abuse allegations against a member of his coaching staff.
More to come I'm sure. A horrible situation regardless of one's football affiliations.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:40 AM ^
I meant to post the FB link to the full story:
https://www.facebook.com/TheBrettMcMurphy/posts/2042037522486968
August 1st, 2018 at 11:52 AM ^
Meyer made a mistake going after McMurphy - should have kept his mouth shut ("I won't be discussing this today to protect the privacy of the family..."). McMurphy is now out for both notoriety and blood.
This is the downfall for all douche bags - not being able to shut their f&cking mouths. He couldn't help himself because he want to look like the good guy.
If he lied about knowing of the 2015 incident at the B1G Media Day, this could actually be trouble for him.
August 1st, 2018 at 12:06 PM ^
As long as she keeps winning, he will have a very long leash.
Tressel was fired after a 12-2 season. I don't think Meyer gets fired for this, but certainly deserves some discipline.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:42 AM ^
Yep - He's a dirty, F-in, scumbag. But if he's learned anything from the MSU mess....just pretend he wasn't aware, and call it all "Fake News"
August 1st, 2018 at 11:08 AM ^
Take one out of Izzo's playbook:
"It wouldn't be fair to the kids on the team to discuss this now that fall camp is about to start."
August 1st, 2018 at 10:42 AM ^
He’s not getting fired and he’s not resigning. Dantinko and Izzo were worst than this and guess what nothing has happened to them. Everyone freaks out and nothing happens.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:57 AM ^
OSU fails up....if Meyer gets fired, however unlikely it'll be, with their luck, Pete Carroll would come back to college to coach them.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:02 AM ^
what's your deal?
August 1st, 2018 at 11:30 AM ^
or saban will decide needs a change go osu
August 1st, 2018 at 12:08 PM ^
That’s exactly what will happen. Just pisses me off
August 1st, 2018 at 10:43 AM ^
Uh oh...
August 1st, 2018 at 10:43 AM ^
Fully expect Urban to weasel his way out of this one like all the others that have come up in the past
August 1st, 2018 at 11:20 AM ^
Changing my mind after reading the Facebook post. The whole staff will take a mandated sensitivity/domestic violence awareness course. Then Urban will self-impose a one-game suspension on himself for the....(looking at OSU schedule this year)....Oregon St. game and call it a day.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:43 AM ^
But Harbaugh said chickens are NERVOUS!!! /s
August 1st, 2018 at 10:45 AM ^
The media will still find a way to bash Harbaugh because he doesn’t like chicken and cant beat his rivals. Yet scumbags like Meyer and Mantonio get a free pass. At least McMurphy has some balls to go after Meyer. Let’s see what/if anything comes of this.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:24 AM ^
Harbaugh WILL beat his rivals. But never beat his wife. Down with the scumbags who either commit domestic violence or ignore it!!!
August 1st, 2018 at 10:47 AM ^
Nothing will happen. If this was Harbaugh tons of national media outlets would literally camp out on campus until he was fired. Double standard continues. Just like Mork and Izzo, nothing will happen to Meyer.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:58 AM ^
I mean, a lot of us (and every MSU and OSU fan on the planet) gave Harbaugh tons of shit for keeping Perry around. And for relatively good reason.
Robertson was an "unfortunate situation" but hey, Dantonio was giving him a second chance! He's a great guy!
Zach Smith was an "unfortunate situation that no one new about. How is it Meyer's fault for not knowing when there wasn't court records?! He's a great guy!"
Point being, not all things are equal and not all things receive appropriate, proportional outrage.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
Perry was suspended until his case was over...that's the difference.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:36 AM ^
And the evidence (video + witnesses ) was clear he did not touch or assault anyone.
August 1st, 2018 at 12:46 PM ^
Uh what video? Also witnesses are notoriously unreliable.
That as well.
Just pointing out that even in the gray areas that all coaches have to work in when it comes to player discipline, people harp on Perry and equate it to Robertson (or the half dozen other offenders - not sexual, but in other cases - that Dantonio kept around).
Meyer's Florida teams were THE MOST ARRESTED teams in the country but his "faith" has made him above reproach. Same with Dantonio (I used to attend the same church as him when I was growing up). Even Harbaugh is overtly Christian and people point to that to prove that he is morally centered and would never do such a thing (and to my knowledge hasn't to the same degree). It doesn't take 4 mistakes to make someone fallible, everyone is 1 bad mistake away from deserved criticism.
It's the same issue people had with Paterno, Nassar, and plenty of others (to obviously varying degrees - I'm NOT saying Meyer = Nassar). People conflate someone's success and "good" in their profession with being a good person. Nassar was a great doctor (when he wasn't assaulting girls) and very successful so he MUST be a good person. Why else would he be so successful if he was a POS?
I hope everyone can get to that point and realize that people in general (especially football coaches) are fallible and not some moral true good BECAUSE they can coach a sport well/are successful in their profession. I like Harbaugh and hope he does well. If he steps in it and royally screws up, I'm reminding myself that he isn't the person I looked to as some symbol of guiding principle.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:47 AM ^
I recommend reading the entire post. This is...terrible.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^
Wow - pictures of abuse and everything. Urban Meyer is going to get fired and maybe the whole staff given every coach knew.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:20 AM ^
Meyer will get some sort of reprimand. OSU won't do anything that might impact their program. Not for this. They'll take the bad press.
Meyer should thank his lucky stars that Smith was only arrested for trespassing this time. If it were for a violent crime, his job might be in real jeopardy.
August 1st, 2018 at 12:14 PM ^
Zero chance Urban gets fired. Now if you say The school president will fire himself instead, that’s more plausible.
August 1st, 2018 at 12:31 PM ^
What's interesting is that Urb's wife is now in the middle - did she tell her husband, if not - why, if so, then why didn't Urb take action...it's got the potential to explode.
Never underestimate Urban's ability to manipulate his wife. He talked her into staying married to him after the Florida nonsense.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:48 AM ^
This is a fireable offense, and I'm not just saying that because it's Urban Meyer. Knowing and covering up for an abuser on your staff for 3 years, then only when it comes out, you fire him? However, I'm not surprised by this at all since covering up for his dirty programs has been his forte since his Florida days
August 1st, 2018 at 10:50 AM ^
Not good - the NCAA needs to gear up an investigation. Harboring coaches who commit domestic violence / abuse is severely bad.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:50 AM ^
Nobody should be surprised by this.
However Dantonio is 10x worse than Meyer.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:15 AM ^
I'm not so sure that's the case considering how many scumbags he's had on his team at both Florida and OSU.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:38 AM ^
Aaron Hernandez killed a guy!
/Anchorman'd
August 1st, 2018 at 10:51 AM ^
He’s not going anywhere. He wins. He’ll get a slap on the wrist, issue some BS public apology about needing to do more in the future, maybe get a fine, and all will be forgiven and forgotten.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:51 AM ^
I can't wait for nothing to come of this.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:53 AM ^
Very interesting. When this story first broke after Smith was fired both morning radio hosts on 92.3 the Fan here in Cleveland said if it was proven that Meyer knew about the situation and didnt do anything he should be fired immediately. Both said proof of his knowledge would be very difficult to gain but if there was proof then Gene Smith HAS to fire him.
Looks like there's proof. Bet he's not fired though.....
August 1st, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
I'd like to hear what those hosts say now.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:24 AM ^
Both just tweeted "he needs to be fired".
I just read the long version of the post he made...the entire thing. It's beyond horrifying and once ESPN gets over the fact that one of their ex-employees broke the story and they start running with it Meyer is very, very fucked.
And remember - I'm the guy who said nothing would happen to Dantonio or Izzo. Well this one is different, documentable and very, very bad.
August 1st, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
Zero chance he is fired over this.
You're wrong. There is a very, very good chance he will be fired over this.
And I'm guy who correctly predicted that nothing would happen to Izzo & Dantonio. This is different - Urban lied about the situation and the lie is always exponentially worse than the crime itself. Always.
Just ask his Jim Tressel
I hear what you’re saying, I just disagree. There will be an apology an investigation and some sort of self imposed sanction / suspension. Fired? No way.
Please be right.
Good call. ESPN has nothing on this story on either the front page or their CFB main page. We'll see how long it takes to get on board.
Update: ESPN just posted now
August 1st, 2018 at 11:29 AM ^
An easy prediction - more moving goalposts.
August 1st, 2018 at 11:33 AM ^
Good to see there are some rational OSU fans. I just had a different experience where a OSU fan friend of mine tried to write out a long drawn out explanation with big words to say that this is a huge attempt to smear Urban Meyer
August 1st, 2018 at 12:38 PM ^
They might want to hold up for a bit on that one. McMurphy just said on air (ESPNU) that he has "100s more photos and texts and this is just the tip of the iceberg".
He's smart. He knows if you drop everything all at once people will get bored with it and move on. Dole out the info bit by bit over the next week or so and he'll keep his name in the news for a while.
Hell, might even get his old job back.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:55 AM ^
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Of course he knew. He knew he was an alcoholic, he knew his marriage was in shambles and he knew that his mentor's grandson was a terrible football coach and that he was protected because of bloodline. Literally everybody knew. I knew. I wrote around it for six years.</p>— Ramzy Nasrallah (@ramzy) <a href="https://twitter.com/ramzy/status/1024665540038721541?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 1, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Hoping this twitter embed works. REALLY weak from Ramzy.
August 1st, 2018 at 10:57 AM ^
Of course not (new site sucks). Anyways, here's a link to his tweet: https://twitter.com/ramzy/status/1024665540038721541?
It says: "Of course he knew. He knew he was an alcoholic, he knew his marriage was in shambles and he knew that his mentor's grandson was a terrible football coach and that he was protected because of bloodline. Literally everybody knew. I knew. I wrote around it for six years."
Writing around it when you knew is so, so indefensible.