After revelations of multiple previous domestic violence arrests emerged Monday against Ohio State wide receivers coach Zach Smith, the Buckeyes quickly made Smith their former wide receivers coach.
Ohio State’s reaction begged more questions of Urban Meyer, given the arrests date back nearly a decade to when Meyer and Smith were at Florida. What did Meyer know and when did he know it?
As fate would have it, Tuesday was Meyer’s turn to speak at Big Ten media days, but Meyer said Tuesday that Smith’s firing had nothing to do with that.
According to him, Monday just happened to be the day that the internal report from Smith’s criminal trespassing arrest from May came in.
Urban Meyer told @TheAthletic he began reviewing Zach Smith's job status after his criminal trespassing charge in May. Yesterday's revelation of a 2009 incident "had nothing to do with it."
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) July 24, 2018
Here are full comments Meyer made earlier this afternoon about the 2009 incident in response to a series of questions from @DougLesmerises. pic.twitter.com/NCd5ZQoUpw
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) July 24, 2018
The key phrase from the above exchange comes in the middle. When asked about Smith’s 2009 felony arrest at Florida (the charges were later dropped), Meyer said, “It was a young couple, and I saw a very talented coach, and we moved forward.”
Meyer expressed a similar sentiment earlier Tuesday when he classified Smith’s dismissal as “a very tough call.”