It turns out that teaching a “leadership” class at Ohio State is not the only thing that Urban Meyer will be doing in Columbus after he wraps up his career at the Rose Bowl on January 1st.
After several reports surfaced about Meyer’s future plans, OSU athletic director Gene Smith confirmed to the Columbus Dispatch’s Bill Rabinowitz on Saturday evening that Meyer would indeed be elevated to an assistant athletic director role in the department
.@OSUCoachMeyer will become an assistant athletic director at Ohio State after he retires as coach, AD Gene Smith confirms. Smith declined to provide any more details.
— Bill Rabinowitz 🗞 (@brdispatch) December 23, 2018
The move to keep Meyer around with unspecified duties is not uncommon for successful head coaches who are retiring but the added layers of the recent past do complicate things a bit. Both Smith and Meyer were suspended at the start of the 2018 season after an investigation by the school looked into their handling of sexual assault allegations made by the ex-wife of former wide receivers coach Zach Smith.
Then there’s the other aspect of Meyer sticking around in a supervisory role. While new head coach Ryan Day probably won’t mind at first having his old boss stick around to bounce ideas off of, it would seemingly lessen the chance for him to put his stamp firmly on the program going forward.
Either way, it appears that even with Meyer “retiring” from his current position at Ohio State, he’ll still very much be around to watch over the Buckeyes going forward.
