"Two Great Men fell on the sword for a University they dearly love"
And so it begins. Gene Smith's attorney puts out a statement that shows they're not really sorry at all. The best line: "As a result, two great men fell on the sword for a University they dearly love."
Gene Smith and Urban Meyer are heroes and the true victims here. No shame.
August 24th, 2018 at 12:55 AM ^
Live feed of Irving Meijer and Jean Smit
August 24th, 2018 at 12:56 AM ^
Made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments. Don't make the same choices as me, my friends.
August 24th, 2018 at 1:03 AM ^
Reminds me of a Dan cummins sketch about “Disposables”. I’m sure the comments were full of nothing but champions, a cornucopia of talent and knowledge.
August 24th, 2018 at 4:02 AM ^
I read a little. I like the guy who says ESPN shouldn't cover it because it's not noteworthy that a lawyer would defend his client, but then talks about how what he said was so great.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:05 AM ^
Sadly I did read some of the comments. To be fair there were a small number of rational comments but holy shit most of those posters...man I don’t know. Strange times we live in.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:43 AM ^
Too late, and boy am I sorry. Wow!
August 24th, 2018 at 8:45 AM ^
One poster: "...They did what they are supposed to do. Meyer did more than a football coach should be doing." Meyer did more of what, exactly? More covering up? Deleting old texts and emails?
Bitch. Please.
August 24th, 2018 at 9:32 AM ^
They sound exactly like the Joe Paterno apologists. Sorry, if this crap went down with Harbaugh, we'd have some knuckle heads like over at 11 Poorly Educated, but I think the vast majority of us would understand some punishment needed to be done.
August 24th, 2018 at 10:06 AM ^
This is the problem, those knuckle heads are in charge of OSU. I'm sure there'd be some Michigan people who would be as morally bankrupt, but I have to believe for my sanity that those people are not in charge of the university or athletic department.
August 24th, 2018 at 12:59 AM ^
A moment of silence for our fallen heroes
August 24th, 2018 at 1:09 AM ^
Utterly sickening.
August 24th, 2018 at 1:29 AM ^
Fell on the sword?!? What the actual fuck? Falling on the sword in this situation would be resigning. This was more like getting shot in the ass with a nerf gun.
He claims they accepted the suspensions as if they could say no. As if former University President Gee was correct in his assertion that he is lucky the coach didn’t fire him. Their priorities are so ass-backwards. Fucked up university in the middle of a fucked up state. Pass the meth, cooler-pooper.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:21 AM ^
Apparently the President demanded the suspensions. The board of trustees didn’t even want to budge on any punishment. That’s how asinine these bums are. I don’t expect President Drake to stay around much longer. Bet he lost a good amount of support for having decency.
Secondly HOW THE FUCK does Gene Smith still have a job? He survived Tressel and now this. Let’s not forget his fucking wrestling team is accusing the school of sexual assault but no one cares cuz it happened to men.
Smdh
August 24th, 2018 at 10:48 AM ^
If Drake has aspirations for more prestigious university president positions, he needs to find a new role today. His reputation took a big hit on this. OSU is exactly what the outside world has believed for decades.
Gene Smith is the perfect person for the AD role at OSU. He is willing to play the fall guy (but not fall all the way) for when their football coaches get caught. Tressel should have been fired the year after they won the title in 2002 when Maurice Clarett got caught and all of the payments and stacks of cash players had been receiving for years at OSU. But OSU looked the other way. Gene Smith looks the other way better than anyone.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:34 AM ^
Cedar Point is cool, though. They do have Cedar Point.
August 24th, 2018 at 9:34 AM ^
Ohio is the wasteland between Pittsburgh and Ann Arbor.
August 24th, 2018 at 1:38 AM ^
It's getting so bad my interest is college football is declining the way my NFL interest did. The corruption needs to stop.
August 24th, 2018 at 6:17 AM ^
How can you have interest in anything?
The entire damn race of Man is corrupt. It isn’t just football or the United States.It’s everywhere.
What OSU is doing is actually normal. Humans will defend what they cherish even if said thing is morally bankrupt.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:33 AM ^
Unfortunately, you could not be more right. I'll see you in hell, Costanza.
August 24th, 2018 at 9:32 AM ^
Ladies and Gentlemen, Arby’s would like to announce its new national spokesman.
August 24th, 2018 at 1:47 AM ^
Just... yeah.
My esteem for the OSU fanbase is zero on the Kelvin scale.
August 24th, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^
ABSOLUTE ZERO.
Anyone remember the movie Running Man? When Arnold kills the 'freeze' guy and says "He used to be 'Sub-Zero', now he is just plain Zero" - that was great.
OK - back to work
August 24th, 2018 at 1:49 AM ^
And Zach Smith is trashing the investigators.
https://twitter.com/CoachZachSmith/status/1032815834832547843
I expected the media to keep bashing OSU. I wasn't expecting people on the OSU side to be egging them on already. We knew ZS is an idiot, but the lawyer's statement is even more tone deaf. It's time for Urban to speak out and defend himself. Who knows what he'd say if he wasn't reading off a piece of paper someone wrote for him.
August 24th, 2018 at 1:57 AM ^
He is going to do a national interview with a friendly reporter like Herbstreit, Pete Thamel, or Tom Rinaldi to repair his image and dodge any tough questions. And their fan base is going to eat it up. Tim Layden wrote a great article on the problems with the sport of football today, and he wrote a great line about what is going to happen in the next couple weeks:
Sadly, it was inconceivable that Ohio State would fire Urban Meyer for sins involving the abuse of a woman. Football in the Horseshoe is too important for that. Before the season is finished, Meyer will be a martyr. (Watch: Players will write his initials on their shoes and towels and wristbands.) And Courtney Smith will be “adversity” that had to be “overcome” in the pursuit of a Big Ten title, a playoff berth and a national title.
August 24th, 2018 at 6:43 AM ^
This has been my take since before the press conference. The media will still cry and whine about it today, but then they'll forget. Monday will dawn with all the 'journalists' and talking heads getting ready for the season. All the talk will be about how teams will do. Meyer will be a talking point only about how OSU will fare the first three weeks, and then the pity party will start for them on the 'waiting for Meyer to get back' watch party. We'll never hear about Courtney or Zach Smith again. By the end of Nov the story will be about OSU's 'recovery' from adversity.
BTW, Meyer's 'suspension' is only until the first game is over - on Sept 3, he's back with the program doing everything but standing on the sideline the next two Saturdays. The 'three game suspension' is a farce of phrasing.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:51 AM ^
I don't know about that. There was a lot of "healing" talk for Penn State a few years after the Sandusky/Paterno stuff when they won some big games and went to the Rose Bowl, but there was literally nobody left at Penn State with even a loose affiliation to that scandal. It is different when one of the "bad actors" remains as the face of the team. If you liken it to MSU this past basketball season, you weren't hearing or seeing any "MSU wins BIG regular season championship and healing begins" or anything like that. It was simply not something that was discussed. Now, with the #MeToo and other things that have taken place, I don't think you will see or hear about Meyer or OSU as a victim, I think it simply won't be discussed.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:00 AM ^
After that disaster of a press conference, even a friendly interview. could be problematic for Meyer. Whatever he says would get picked apart by the rest of the media. I feel that's a strategy tried much more often than it's effective.
One problem for OSU is that head coaches can't avoid the media. They could shield almost anyone else.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:42 AM ^
Dude is going to get picked apart in every press conference this season. He can "no-comment I'm only answering questions about football" until he's blue in the face but until he responds to questions regarding the investigation report he isn't going to get an inch of wiggle room in front of the media. They gonna lock all the national press out of his post-game pressers? Because that is the only way he's going to be able to talk about football.
August 24th, 2018 at 10:18 AM ^
Don't worry...Urban is like a cornerback: if you get burned, just forget it and move on to the next play.*
* Unless "it" is memorialized in text messages on a university-issued phone. Then you have to remember to have the phone forget.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:08 AM ^
Well, they won’t write his initials which are UM because you know...
August 24th, 2018 at 3:54 AM ^
Remember, this is the guy who said if he went down, he was taking OSU with him. If he reveals the “investigation” was a sham like the one commissioned by MSU designed solely to mitigate damage to the university, he could force this whole thing to start over with a new investigation.
This is precisely why you don’t employ a guy like him. Even if you ignore the DV, Smith is a walking liability. Surprise! The drunk who quit rehab, went to strip clubs on recruiting trips, carried on an affair in the office and sex toys sent to the office has turned out to be a loose cannon. Who could seen that coming?
August 24th, 2018 at 8:07 AM ^
Urban can easily, and likely is doing something along this line, kick a nice $6 figure amount to ZS annually to kept his golden goose alive and well.
It is, however, not unusual for people who get by with transgressions such as this to continue to push the envelope and finally making a "fatal" error. Additionally, their narcissistic obsessions overtake them and the performance of their real jobs declines...and their life otherwise falls apart. This will be interesting to watch.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:41 AM ^
The normal way to keep your former assistant coaches quiet is simple. Promise to help them get another job, at least vouch for them. When the alternative is getting blackballed, that's a powerful incentive not to roll over on your former coach or program.
I'd bet there are people in Zach Smith's ear telling him just that. Once this all blows over, he'll get another coaching job. As ridiculous as it may sound, they only need him to buy into it. "coach" is still in his twitter handle. Of course, there is a real risk that ZS will fall on hard times and taking money for a tell all will be tempting.
It would be insane for Meyer to pay ZS. It would come out in his child support hearings.
August 24th, 2018 at 2:01 AM ^
Thoughts and prayers.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:37 AM ^
First game they win after Urban comes back the TV announcers will talk about how the school can finally "begin the healing."
August 24th, 2018 at 2:26 AM ^
TONE DEAF!!!
August 24th, 2018 at 4:05 AM ^
It's just horrible. This is them 'playing to their base.' The whole damn world is aflame in lies and deceit.
August 24th, 2018 at 5:46 AM ^
Urban put his own texts to the sword. Does a great man with the "core value" of honesty start destroying evidence if he has nothing to hide?
August 24th, 2018 at 6:37 AM ^
Mother Karma - you have been absent from that shit hole in Ohio for far too long. It is time to raise your wand with a mighty vengeance. And if you want to save it for that 3rd Saturday in November, that would be cool too.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:57 AM ^
Fourth. Please be the fourth. I would like to have Michigan win.
August 24th, 2018 at 10:39 AM ^
Shit it's the fourth? Well you all know what I meant.
August 24th, 2018 at 6:52 AM ^
I didn't think I had any space left in my heart for my hate of OSU. Behold - they found a steam shovel and dug deeper.
So Gene Smith and Micheal Drake seem to be getting a pass from the media because sounded believable and contrite. Whatever. We know Gene Smith's duplicity - the guy that allowed Tressel to get away with lying. He only fired Tressle as a way to avoid a show cause, and he later orchestrated the 'carry him off the field' bullshit party. As for Drake - isn't the president the guy the BoT hired to make all personnel and day-to-day management decisions? Well, the BoT has demonstrated that they have no trust in his ability to make a good choice on those matters. If he had an ounce of shredded integrity left in his body, he'd have resigned already. So no integrity.
What surprise that someone associated with that place lacks integrity.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:09 AM ^
I have always been able to maintain a middling level of respect for OSU, but after this sorry episode, any respect is gone. They are corrupt to their eyeteeth. McMurphy is hinting that he has more. Out with it, good sir.
August 24th, 2018 at 8:37 AM ^
I used to think otherwise, but Ohio State is no higher up the food chain than Michigan State.
They are just better at it.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:14 AM ^
Easy, easy stomach. Don't turn over.
August 24th, 2018 at 7:26 AM ^
Whatever. God will judge them.
And me. I will judge them also.
![Zero+given+_8f007a9fa57d1be057d46b423a60418b[1].jpg](/sites/default/files/users/user96084/Zero%2Bgiven%2B_8f007a9fa57d1be057d46b423a60418b%5B1%5D.jpg)
August 24th, 2018 at 7:32 AM ^
When I was a kid and there would be a sappy moment in a movie, i'd pretend to start puking violently into my popcorn bucket, like during a kissing scene, or an emotional reunion. This would be one of those moments. Fuck these clowns. That buckeye high horse they were riding after Penn State is all gone now..
August 24th, 2018 at 7:38 AM ^
I’m going to be in the bathroom vomiting all day if anyone needs me.
Seriously, though, this is some brazen, weapons grade rhino shit. OSU has disgraced itself this week.