Greg McElroy: “All inidications are pointing towards Meyer being reinstated.”

I'd like to know what firing the guy fixes. Everyone keeps saying, "all they care about is winning." Ok, so you fire the guy, what does that fix? prove That you care about image? It doesn't even prove that you stand against DV, just that you care that you look like you care about DV. Is the guy gonna stop beating his wife? Almost certainly not, in fact, I'd argue that it might even make it worse.

What does it fix? And, why is it OSU's job to fix a private situation between a man and his wife. This isn't even OSU's business. This is between the man, his wife, and the police.

I think Brett McMurphy still has a few hands to play in all of this.  Let's continue to eat the popcorn.

I guess my biggest question then is, if Meyer and the administrators followed proper protocol, why doesn't Zach Smith have a job today? The implication of the above post would be, OSU followed protocol, didn't find anything, and so he remained on staff. If that's true, why were they so rushed to fire Smith after a trespassing charge? Shouldn't Smith be the one on administrative leave being investigated if he's never been found to have committed any wrongdoing in the past? None of this makes sense. 

of course he is...  OSU was not going to fire their sacred cow, regardless of whether it was the right thing to do.

the question people should be asking is whether average Coach_____ would have survived this at all... my belief is that there is maybe 4 coaches that would absolutely survive this. Meyer, Saban, Smart and Swinney.

I don't believe Harbaugh would even survive this, mainly due to the fact he hasn't won anything here... if he was a MNC winner, i'd probably add him to the list of untouchables

we all know what kind of program OSU is and has been

I’ve said right from the start he isn’t going anywhere.  OSU doesn’t care about perception or morality.  They care about winning. That’s the way it’s always been. Why should they care what the rest of he country thinks of them? Everyone hates them anyway outside their own fan base, who again, only care about winning. There’s not a lot in Ohio to claim superiority for. This is their one thing. 

Does anyone know what constitutes following protocol until that declaration is determined by investigators?

The facts in this case remain skimpy at this point in terms of what was or wasn't done by Meyer in relation to his dealings in the firing of Zach Smith and his domestic behavioral history and how that played out with respect to Smith's employment history at Florida and Ohio State.

What is the culpability of a supervisor under Meyer's contractual arrangement with Ohio State regardless of whether he might have fulfilled a reporting obligation to notify a superior about an sexual misconduct-related case with a five-day period so it could reviewed as a possible Title IX violation? None of the details thus far reported makes any of those matters clear. So, how do you reach the conclusion that Meyer is probably going to be retained?

For Buckeye fans, I'm certain this is great news. It doesn't change the outside view, however, that there is no good longer term outlook stemming from that decision on the public relations front. In that regard, the damage is done. The school loses whether the fans are happy.

If Meyer is retained, Ohio State gets savaged as domestic violence abuse enabler, especially if the coach is retained based on a judgment of narrowly following the rules without really following a moral path to its conclusion in the handling of Smith and what he and his family should have received in oversight over time.

And this POV is based in part on what is actually known about reporting in the case as of now, that at a certain point Meyer advocated or supported continual hiring of Smith even though he was aware that members of his own mentor's family and a university figure urged Courtney Smith not to press charges against her husband. You can't know that fact, then claim based on the record that since there was no charges filed, that the behavior that could have led to it, is now mitigated or exonerated, in terms of supervisory knowledge.

It's like insisting that because Meyer responded to questioning at Media Days by claiming he was unprepared or was responding to a certain misleading fact (the initial police report check box of arrest on a Powell Police report of a domestic complaint call) that his somehow relieves Meyer from telling the truth to the press about what he knew and how he responded over time to Smith's checkered background in marriage relations.

To me, that is the most ludicrous defense of his character in this matter. Because if he were certain about his actions and the rightness of them as both a supervisor and program leader, he corrects the record in public, before the media where the case is then put to bed or in his statement that followed.

As we all know, he did neither. In fact, he misrepresented himself in his only public responses so far. He offered a limited hangout defense in which he admitted lying, without using that term, to explain his answers to reporter questions in Chicago, and then says that he did, in fact, report as required a domestic violence issue involving Smith in 2015 which he'd previously denied knowing about. Whether he went beyond making a phone call or having a conversation about it with AD Gene Smith has not been disclosed publicly in reporting thus far.

This along with documentation of an email train of correspondence between Meyer's own wife and those of his staffers, photographs of CS with visible signs of bruises and choke marks, along with two texts released after ZS's Friday ESPN interview challenging his veracity on any level of the case, makes any premature judgment about Meyer's supervision in this matter, hardly expected.

However, I will grant that even lack of proper supervision as mandated, can still pass the moral smell test if the modicum of that effort fails to sway  the privacy and legal rights of Meyer's employment, which would then lead to his retention because financial risk management is ultimately greater than any PC public relations hit that results. And the fan base is totally assuaged, even if they have to eat shit for it forever. That's probably the assessment here.

The only thing that would surprise me was him not being reinstated, sadly. Money rules, and winning football games makes money

So this means Gene Smith takes a permanent vacation?

In a few short months the story is going to be ESPN slob-knobbing on OSU for how the team and coaching staff overcame this incredible hardship, how an entire state and fan base rallied behind their embattled coach to overcome the odds and contend for the playoffs again. 

Hopefully that all comes to a crashing halt with a UM win in Columbus. If it doesn’t happen this year, I don’t know that it ever happens as long as Meyer is around. 

Joe Paterno.

'I reported it to my boss - what else could I do?'