Urban Meyer has been placed on administrative leave by Ohio State while the university investigates whether or not he knew about repeated domestic violence allegations against a member of his staff, and that may only be the start of the issues for the longtime coach.
Project Veritas, a media company dedicated to exposing corruption, conducted interviews with some of Meyer’s former players at Florida who claim the practices Meyer and his staff used were abusive. In clips that were released by Project Veritas president James O’Keefe, ex-Gators are shown making some troubling claims about Meyer, including that at least one player did not receive proper treatment for a serious injury.
One former player, ex-Florida offensive tackle Xavier Nixon, said Meyer had a “tradition” where he would whip a full bottle of Gatorade at players. Former Gators linebacker Gideon Ajagbe said Meyer and his staff “humiliated” him to the point where he was suicidal.
Here’s the opener for today’s @OSUCoachMeyer video release. Stay tuned at https://t.co/D2RY4q43ah @Brett_McMurphy pic.twitter.com/6NONXF519m
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) August 2, 2018
Former player describes @OSUCoachMeyer "motivational techniques" — "Hey! I thought you trying to get your mom out the hood?" @OSU_AD pic.twitter.com/9dCQAwApAl
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) August 2, 2018
The clips only show portions of much longer footage that was gathered by Project Veritas detailing a “long history of abuse” from Meyer.
A report on Wednesday from college football reporter Brett McMurphy featured text messages that appeared to show Meyer had to have known about his longtime assistant coach, Zach Smith, abusing his wife. Meyer had previously acknowledged that he knew of 2009 allegations against Smith but said what was reported about them was inaccurate. He claimed to have no knowledge of any allegations after that.
