Zach Smith arrested for DUI (OVI) in 2013
By itself, it's not the kind of thing that would get a guy fired. But it does add a data point making you wonder why the hell this guy was kept around at OSU (or how OSU didn't know about it, if they go that route). Looks like it was never reported in the press.
https://twitter.com/KyleRowland/status/1029046451412914176
The thing that's interesting here is that in 2016, Nebraska WR coach Keith Williams was arrested for DUI. At the time, he and Zach Smith were in a recruiting battle over WR Tyjon Lindsay. Smith took the opportunity to take a shot at Keith Williams on twitter which is just such a douche move.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:02 PM ^
If he wasn’t punished by OSU for this at the time, AND Urban can prove it, this might be the nail-coffin...
August 13th, 2018 at 3:20 PM ^
My favorite part is how 11W users are pointing out that Michigan had an assistant get a DUI earlier this year and note there was no outrage.
They obviously missed the part of the story where he got fired shortly after, rather than had the charge swept under the rug by the local PD and media, let alone be allowed to stay on staff to continue alledged spousal abuse.
August 13th, 2018 at 4:20 PM ^
So is this the 11W mantra? Every time they get exposed for something, the first thing they do is desperately search for an example of something even slightly similar happening at Michigan instead of, you know, being angry at their school for doing the stupid thing in the first place?
Forgive me, I don't have any desire to read that board.
August 13th, 2018 at 7:27 PM ^
I don't ever venture over there either. I've seen of their work over on this board and it is deplorable. Now there are a couple buckeye posters over here that are good and I am glad they post here. And I'm sure they know who they are. But the rest of the fanbase and reading the facebook posts on McMurphy's page is enough to make you want to stick a fork in your eye. They literally cannot see the forest from the trees. A perfect example of this would be their outrage over the "false" rumors that Tom Herman was the source. He likely wasn't and even if he was, who the fuck cares!?! You still employed a huge piece of shit on staff that was there to coach someone's son. And believe it or not, many of the kids that go to OSU are really good kids.
August 13th, 2018 at 5:30 PM ^
Does anyone else find it odd Zach Smith keeps strenuously defending Urban Meyer? It seems the guy has his own issues that need to be dealt with, however, he keeps telling everyone that will listen that it "would be a crime" if anything bad happens to Urban because of this. It just seems off. Perhaps covering for someone who covered for him, for years?
August 13th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
Smith took the opportunity to take a shot at Keith Williams on twitter which is just such a douche move.
Smith is a douche, FACT
August 13th, 2018 at 2:18 PM ^
Can someone please explain to me what Zone6 refers to?
Please tell me that Zach Smith nicknamed his terrible coaching.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
Zone 6 refers to the fact that Zach Smith was such a bad WR coach that even with the defense putting 8 in the box it still felt like his wideouts were facing 6 defensive backs in zone coverage.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
You mean FACK
August 13th, 2018 at 2:48 PM ^
Dude’s a limp-dicked wife beater.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
I posted this in the other thread and was probably too late to get a response:
Can somebody explain to me why Zach Smith was fired if the abuse wasn't real? It's quite clear that Urban is using the Snook guy to put out lots of misleading and untrue things, but if he is alleging that the abuse was made up then why didn't OSU investigate and then deal with Smith? It seems like it would have been premature to fire him if it wasn't real and you would think that the media mouthpieces for the program would not want to leave a case for wrongful dismissal.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:09 PM ^
IIRC his firing came on the heels of an actual arrest and criminal charge -- stalking or something.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:17 PM ^
Not really accurate. He was arrested in May for criminal trespassing. He ended up being criminally charged in the case.
Later (and when I say later I mean at least a few weeks, possibly months) his ex-wife filed a CIVIL restraining order against him on a Friday. He was fired three days later on Monday. In the intervening weekend, McMurphy exposed the 2015 incident.
OSU fans will tell you he was fired because of the restraining order being filed. This could be true. But it seems odd that a civil restraining order was the impetus for firing him when criminal arrest and charges were not. It certainly appears that the true motive in firing him was that the 2015 incident was exposed.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:23 PM ^
thanks
August 13th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
Like so often in life, actions are only taken when issues become public, not after they actually happen.
August 13th, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^
Meyer came right right and said the publicity was part of the reason he fired him. That was during Big Ten media days. It got buried by the coverage of the lies he told there.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:29 PM ^
"on the heels" is probably incorrect. There was an incident on May 12th, (criminal trespass), he was arraigned on June 5th, he appeared in court on July 18th, it became public on Jul 18th, additional incidents were reported on Jul 23rd, he was fired after these additional incidents became public late in the day on the 23rd.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:53 PM ^
That's what is strange to me - if OSU/Meyer are saying it wasn't the allegations of abuse that led to his firing, is stuff like a five year old DUI coming out now so OSU can say they fired him because of the trespassing and a DUI?
August 13th, 2018 at 3:49 PM ^
It seems like bad PR for OSU for this to come out now. It just makes it look like they and Meyer handled Smith even more poorly. It's late to claim that was why he was let go.
There are a few questions. Who at OSU was Smith required to report his arrest, charges and/or conviction to? If he did report it, was it handled properly? Could this happen without Meyer or the AD learning about it? If the blame fails on Meyer, it strengthens the case to fire him.
So this leak can only be good for OSU if they want to fire Meyer. If they want to keep him, it's varying degrees of bad, depending on some details.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
Haven't there been new allegations that have just occurred recently? I honestly don't remember. The new allegations wouldn't be an issue of controversy--the question is whether or not he should have had a job after previous allegations, especially since he obviously hadn't reformed.
I think. If there is new stuff there's almost zero talk about it, to the point where I don't remember and you're asking this question, which means this is a really good question regardless of what has happened more recently.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:22 PM ^
My best at an objective analysis with what information we have.
1. Smith has an incident at Florida. Meyer probably does not like what he hears, but with no charges being filed, he treats it as a "family matter" and uses the lack of criminal charges as cover.
2. With the incident largely forgotten, Smith comes to OSU with Meyer and the two are now closer. Urban and Shelley are friendly off the field with Zach and Courtney Smith. Courtney Smith provides Shelley Smith with information in the form of text messages and pictures, this information is never provided directly to Meyer, and may actually never have been provided to him.
3. This happens almost simultaneously with a criminal investigation that both Meyer, and the OSU athletic department become aware of. Because the AD already knows of the investigation, Meyer does not formally report anything to anybody because those that he would report to already know. At this point, OSU should immediately fire Smith based on information they have, regardless of whether Smith is ever prosecuted. (Do the police ever get the pictures that are in Shelley Smith's possession? IDK) They don't, however, and Meyer does not dig any further and may never have actually seen any evidence of what Smith allegedly did.
4. The trespassing charges are brought at around the same time as the PPO is released publicly, and for the first time, Meyer and OSU really understand that they have turned a blind eye to something more serious than they had taken it thus far. They fire Smith upon learning of the trespassing charges and the PPO and hope that nobody will look that closely at it.
5. McMurphy digs, already has ammo at BIG media days. Urban has no earthly idea how to respond as the story impugns Smith, Meyer, OSU, Shelley, like everybody. He then resorts to his fall back method for just about anything. He lies.
This is my best at a narrative on this.
August 13th, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^
You sure give Meyer a lot of credit. I mean, I get not assuming facts until we see evidence, but are you giving the man trust he doesn't deserve?
August 13th, 2018 at 3:24 PM ^
I'm not giving Meyer any credit for anything. I think he should have given the situation far more attention that he did and fired him in 2015.
Do you believe it is more likely that Meyer kept Zach Smith, a serious nobody, on staff for years with the full understanding that at any time Meyer could possibly lose his job and be embroiled in a huge scandal for no reason except that he thinks domestic violence is awesome and was sitting in his office doing a loud evil laugh and tapping his fingers together like Mr. Burns?
I don't think Meyer knowingly acted against his self-interest in this regard. I simply don't think he was paying enough attention and deferred too much to whether Smith was prosecuted. That may very well be a fireable offense in and of itself.
August 13th, 2018 at 4:52 PM ^
Zach Smith may be a crappy WR coach but he is 1) apparently a good recruiter and 2) Earle Bruce's grandson, two potential reasons for Meyer to look the other way at his behavior.
August 13th, 2018 at 6:53 PM ^
I also don't think Urban had any clue that he himself would be in danger if the issues with Zach came to light. He seriously underestimated the potential consequences of keeping Zach around to his own career.
August 13th, 2018 at 6:27 PM ^
All of this goes to the question of why Meyer didn't fire him earlier, and whether Smith knows where the bodies are buried with regards to paying players or other nefarious conduct.
Urban definitely screwed up if Smith is his fixer, because whilst Smith has the requisite lack of moral integrity to perform those dastardly tasks, he was an accident waiting to happen.
If you are going to embark upon a criminal enterprise with someone, best to pick someone like Gus Fring and not Tuco Salamanca.
August 13th, 2018 at 3:12 PM ^
This obviously gives Urban a HUGE benefit of the doubt in that it assumes 1) he didn't know about the texts to Shelley despite her saying she is going to have to tell Urban and 2) he didn't know about the stalking or 9 other calls to the police that were reported both of which would have amounted to a very impressive ability by people around him to hide those things AND a concerted effort by Urban to keep his head in the sand.
Now, there doesn't exist any proof (probably) that he knew these things, but to Brian's point last week, it's his job to know. That mere fact that he might claim to not know all this stuff is probably fireable if you want to give any impression that you as an institution care that the people working for your institution make sure that they aren't enabling domestic violence.
August 13th, 2018 at 4:45 PM ^
And it's hard to imagine that Shelley Meyer would tell Courtney Smith that Zach Smith "scared" her, only to never say a word about it to Urban.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
Exactly, OSU wouldn't have fired him unless they knew the allegations had some truth to them
August 13th, 2018 at 3:10 PM ^
He was fired once everything became public and it would've been a PR nightmare not to.
However, once Urban's job was on the line, I think they've began trying to prove Smith's innocence. They will happily "settle" in civil court with Smith for wrongful termination if it means Urban keeping his job.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:06 PM ^
This Zach Smith fella sure seems like a stand-up guy.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:33 PM ^
If Zach Smith was in fact a stand-up guy he'd have passed the 'stand on one leg' DUI test.
August 13th, 2018 at 3:10 PM ^
I agree to an extent, but lots of stand-up guys have made the mistake of driving a vehicle while intoxicated. I think our own head coach has been arrested for this. It's not our failures that determine whether or not we are stand-up men, but how we handle our failures.
If he was a stand-up guy he would have owned up to his failures, taken his punishment and not have continued repeating the failures. He also would not have bashed another coach for getting caught doing the same. Finally, he would accept that he destroyed his marriage by cheating and peacefully let his ex-wife move on. That's the real evidence of who he is.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^
I’m just trying to figure out how Courtney Smith poured alcohol down his throat and forced him to drive ???
August 13th, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^
Zach drank and drove out of self defense.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:30 PM ^
I believe that Zach was removing himself from a bar and I do not believe he intentionally drove drunk. I do not believe he actually intentionally turned the wheel or pushed the gas pedal...no.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:24 PM ^
She didn't. Michelle Herman did.
August 13th, 2018 at 5:32 PM ^
According to Urban, Shelley kept attacking Zach's fists with her face and neck.
The media just has it flipped due to the #metoo movement.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:08 PM ^
I don't know if it has anything to do with OSU's decision but it does suggest that Smith's malfeasance was underreported. Jim Minick wasn't even a coach and his DUI was breaking news. There were 15 minutes of video footage released within a month. He even offered to resign.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:11 PM ^
But, but, but...there’s NO WAY the Powell PD helped cover this up!!! NO WAY!!!!!
August 13th, 2018 at 2:18 PM ^
It happened in Dublin.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:33 PM ^
See, FM is correct.
August 13th, 2018 at 4:04 PM ^
One has to be seriously leprechaun-drunk to get ticketed in Dublin.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^
Putting aside all of the what exactly did Urban know/report, and whether or not he had cause to fire him, etc., Urban is such an idiot for keeping such a liability on his staff who by all accounts wasn't even good at his job. It's truly baffling, even with the Earl Bruce connection. Still makes me wonder if Zach Smith has dirt Urban was afraid of getting out.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
I think he's supposed to be a very good recruiter.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:36 PM ^
That's my understanding as well - if you wanted a WR coach, you could do a lot better than Smith, but the guy was supposed to be a stellar recruiter, which apparently in the eyes of some at OSU more than made up for...well....everything else that has thus far been reported.
August 13th, 2018 at 2:58 PM ^
I guess it could be as simple as he was a good recruiter and Urban thought he was untouchable, but if I were the committee, I'd be considering the liability that Smith may still represent. Worst case scenario for OSU would be reinstating Meyer only to have another bombshell break after doing so.