Former Ohio State president Michael V. Drake claimed he didn’t plan on firing Urban Meyer before the head coach resigned following the 2018 season.
Ohio State suspended Meyer for the first three games of the 2018 season due to his mishandling of domestic assault accusations against former assistant coach Zach Smith. The program fired Smith after the public was made aware of allegations of abuse against ex-wife Courtney Smith, who told police in 2015 that she feared for her life.
Although it seemed like the situation could cost Meyer his job before he stepped down for health reasons, Drake told the Columbus Dispatch‘s Bill Rabinowitz that he wouldn’t have fired the head coach.
Meyer initially claimed he was unaware of a 2015 police investigation into Zach Smith for felonious assault and domestic violence. However, Smith said Ohio State pulled him off a recruiting trip, and Courtney Smith said she told Meyer’s wife that Zach Smith assaulted her.
The head coach changed his story, falsely stating that a police department turned up nothing on Smith when his staff called. The police turned up two domestic complaints against him in 2015.
In 2019, Ohio State released texts and emails between Smith, Meyer, and others related to its investigation. Meyer asked Smith not to leave the program for another job in January 2018.
“It was personally painful,” Drake told the Columbus Dispatch. “It was extraordinarily uncomfortable for me with people who I liked and admired and worked so well with to have an issue like this in the program. I wish the issue had been handled in the past. That certainly would have been my preference. But when these things come to you, you have to handle them.”