So it took the Ohio State Trustees ALL DAY to come to a decision that we all knew they were going to eventually wind up at. At this point everyone knew he was going to face a suspension of some kind. Of course, they could not just suspend him for Oregon State and Rutgers, they had to add something of consequence there. This is real the kicker: The third game is TCU.
The TCU game (neutral site) is big for CFP implications, and you have to think that they added the third game to avoid the outrage that would have come with just missing games against Rutgers and Oregon State.
Honestly, this is probably the best decision the board could have come to. Urban should not be fired for something he allegedly reported. Could he have fired Smith earlier? Of course. But on the nepotism front, him believing Smith makes sense, it was his mentor’s grandson.
All that being said, Urban has likely lost respect from a lot of people after all of this. What happened here, coupled with everything at Florida, brings a lot of questions. If something like this were to ever happen again, Urban might be in much hotter water.
But, the whole suspension thing takes away from the biggest issue: domestic violence. Courtney Smith is the victim here, and I feel like that is being downplayed. I get caring about your program, I do, but at some point we all need to take a step back and look at it from a non-football perspective. This is indicative of a much larger issue with college athletics and coach power, and I can certainly promise that this is not the last time this will be an issue.
But, at the end of the day, this entertained us for a brief moment in an otherwise fairly uneventful offseason. This storyline was resolved right before week zero and the season is about to start. We shouldn’t forget about what happened with Courtney Smith, and Zach Smith is an absolute scumbag, but maybe, just maybe, we let this Urban Meyer thing go for a bit and get to the season.