Ohio State’s Urban Meyer suspended through TCU game, but it’s not enough

TCU fans have been keeping an eye on the Urban Meyer/Ohio State situation taking place up in Columbus, Ohio, and now they know whether or not Meyer will be on the sideline at AT&T Stadium on September 15th.

Meyer will miss Ohio State’s first three games of the season, which, beyond TCU, includes matchups against Oregon State and Rutgers.

We could go into how this affects the TCU-Ohio State game, and it will, but in reality, it’s more important to note that this is a disappointing conclusion to the issues of domestic abuse that took place on Meyer’s staff over the course of the last several years.

Meyer should not have been suspended, he should have been fired, and the way the investigation’s report frames the situation is disgraceful. Here’s what a portion of the report states as a wrongdoing by Meyer and Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith (Smith was suspended for two weeks without pay...the horror).

Coach Meyer and Athletic Director Smith’s efforts to help Zach Smith overcome his personal issues went too far in allowing him to remain as an employee in the face of repeated misconduct.

Zach Smith wasn’t suffering from personal issues. He was beating his wife. Repeatedly. And instead of firing him, and reporting his actions to the police, Meyer and Gene Smith allowed him to remain in a position to continue the abuse. Meyer and Gene Smith should both be fired, not suspended for six days and docked two weeks pay.

Yes, Zach Smith should have been fired immediately, the report gets that right, but the wording indicates that there’s still a misunderstanding of what the core issue truly is. And that’s incredibly disappointing, because if they still don’t get it, it’s going to happen again.

Another disturbing point in the report is the way it bends to defend Meyer’s comments at Big Ten Media Days. For those that may have forgotten, Meyer was asked about Zach Smith’s criminal charges from 2015 at his press conference, and here was his answer:

“I got a text last night that something happened in 2015, and there was nothing,” Meyer told reporters.

This was a lie. Meyer did know about the incident in 2015 that led to Zach Smith’s arrest. And here’s how the report addresses Meyer’s statement:

Although Coach Meyer made significant misstatements about his knowledge of the 2015 events relating to Zach Smith and his former wife at the Big Ten Media Days, they were not part of a deliberate cover-up effort to keep Zach Smith on the coaching staff in the face of evidence of domestic violence by him that Athletic Director Smith and Coach Meyer credited.

Meyer lied to try and hide the fact he knew an assistant on his staff was a domestic abuser, but remained on Ohio State’s staff for three more years. How is that not a “deliberate cover-up?”

I’m sure we’ll hear more opinions on Meyer’s suspension in the coming days, but now you have mine. He won’t be coaching against TCU in September, but he shouldn’t be coaching at all.