The fired Ohio State assistant coach at the center of the scandal threatening to envelop Urban Meyer claims he never hit or abused his ex-wife.
Zach Smith, the former Buckeye wide receivers coach who was arrested in 2009 and 2015 after being accused of domestic violence, denied all wrongdoing in an interview with 105.7 the Zone in Columbus, claiming that he and his ex-wife had an unhappy relationship but denied ever hitting her.
Zach Smith on 105.7 the Zone Columnbus: "We had a volatile relationship, it was toxic … there was a lot of aggressive situations … I've never committed domestic abuse against her. Now, there were times got out of hand and I had to defensively restrain her…I never hit her."
— Dan Wetzel (@DanWetzel) August 3, 2018
Smith went on to say that, in light of the 2015 allegations, athletic director Gene Smith spoke to him and conducted an investigation, but that he was ultimately cleared and allowed to continued coaching. Even now, he feels that his firing was unjust and a response to “media uproar.”
Zach Smith says he got a call from Gene Smith in October 2015 about ex-wife's allegations. "They (OSU) handled it exactly how they should have handled it. The police alerted them. They investigated it, and there were no criminal charges."
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) August 3, 2018
Smith said he was terminated because of media uproar and he said he doesn't think he deserved it. "It's the move they had to make."
— Ari Wasserman (@AriWasserman) August 3, 2018
Smith claimed he had no knowledge of where bruises on his ex-wife Courtney could have come from, and added that coach Urban Meyer and his wife Shelley “weren’t really involved” in the 2015 incident.
Zach Smith asked about the photos of Courtney's bruises and if they're authentic.
“I'm not discounting that they aren't. I don't know where they are from. There were several times things got out of hand between us and I may have restrained her to get out of the house.”
— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) August 3, 2018
Zach Smith: Urban and Shelley Meyer "weren't really involved" at all in 2015.
— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) August 3, 2018
Zach Smith on how he thinks Gene Smith found out about the 2015 incident: “I don't know this for a fact, but I believe the Powell Police Department contacted Ohio State. Not Urban, but the university.”
— Yahoo Sports College Football (@YahooSportsCFB) August 3, 2018
There is a lot here that doesn’t add up. It has been reported that the 2015 case was never resolved, which is very different from being closed and dropped. Smith’s ex-wife has received a protective order against him. Now Smith is claiming that Ohio State conducted an investigation in 2015, while Urban Meyer originally claimed that he didn’t even know about that incident before ultimately backtracking in a statement on Friday, where he claimed he followed the proper protocols.
None of this looks good for Ohio State. Smith’s story doesn’t really hold water, and at best, the school was woefully ignorant of what was going on. At worst, they were complicit in ignoring it and keeping him on staff.
