Football: Urban Meyer says he was told by Smiths 2009 incident was not domestic violence

Urban Meyer listens at a press conference as he fields questions about his handling of the Zach Smith domestic abuse allegations on Aug. 22, 2018. Credit: Casey Cascaldo | Photo Editor

In an interview with ESPN, his first since his suspension was announced on Aug. 22, Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer opened up about the situation between Zach Smith and Courtney Smith that led to Zach’s firing and Meyer’s suspension.

Meyer said he was led to believe in 2009 that the incident — later reported to be an instance of domestic violence from Zach — was not domestic violence, and that both told him it was because Courtney was upset at Zach for drinking.

“I recall being told and believe this was not domestic violence,” Meyer told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi. “That she threw him out of the house and that there were no charges. I was completely reliant on information from law enforcement and there were no charges.”

He was later asked to confront a question posed both by the public to Meyer since his suspension and in the summary of findings by Ohio State: why he hired Zach when he became Ohio State’s head coach.

Meyer said he wanted to have someone who was familiar with his offensive schemes, and that he believed Zach was doing well with his other coaching staffs.

“I checked on him, did background checks with the coaches he worked with. It came back very high marks, and so I made the decision to hire him at Ohio State,” Meyer said. He later said it was a “bad decision” to hire him.

That was not the only decision Meyer said he regretted. Meyer said he did not tell athletic director Gene Smith about the 2009 incident, and that in hindsight he should have.

“Once again, I can’t recall why, that was several years ago. I just can’t tell you what my mindset was at the time,” Meyer said.

Meyer apologized for not only the perception that was cast upon him that he did not take the situation seriously, but also for his actions. He said it was a challenging situation to deal with and he could have handled it all better.

“I erred and I made the decision to do the best I can to help stabilize that situation,” Meyer said. “One of the things, I look back now, I probably should have fired him.”

Meyer added he did not want to speculate on why his wife, Shelley, did not report the text messages sent by Courtney to her saying that Zach was abusing her, saying that he believes if “there’s imminent fear, I imagine that her responsibility is to alert someone.”