After ruling, Meyer OK’d to meet team
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio State coach Urban Meyer’s suspension and previous paid leave have restricted him from talking football with his staff and athletes during August with one exception — a team meeting the day after the suspension was announced.
Meyer and athletic director Gene Smith were allowed to meet with the players and coaches for about 45 minutes Thursday, according to emails sent to Meyer by the senior vice president for human resources, Susan Basso. The emails outlining the details of Meyer’s suspension were obtained by the Associated Press on Tuesday through an open records request and first reported by Ohio State’s campus newspaper, the Lantern. Meyer can’t attend practices, meetings or official events, and can’t conduct any business related to being head coach. He will lose six weeks of salary — about $500,000 — in a year he is slated to earn $7.6 million.
Meyer and Smith were suspended over their handling of a now-fired assistant coach who was accused of domestic violence. Meyer resumes some coaching duties Monday but can’t coach in the first three games. He is allowed to run practices after the first game.
Meyer and Smith met with the team Thursday. Meyer received written details of the suspension Sunday, four days after the discipline was announced publicly. At 5:53 p.m. Monday, Meyer was sent an email from Basso confirming the Thursday meeting — “in order to apologize to the team” — had been authorized. A university spokesman said Ohio State president Michael V. Drake had authorized the meeting with the “understanding and support” of members of the board of trustees.
Meyer’s sideline substitute for the first three games will be co-offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Ryan Day, 39, a second-year Ohio State assistant.
Meanwhile, Ohio State has identified Texas coach Tom Herman as the Buckeyes assistant who went with Zach Smith to a Florida strip club when they were Buckeyes assistants in 2014. University spokesman Chris Davey told the Columbus Dispatch that Herman was the assistant who was mentioned but unnamed in a 23-page investigation report on Meyer’s handling of domestic abuse accusations. UT officials did not comment.
Odds and ends
Vanderbilt sophomore safety Zaire Jones was suspended for the season opener with Middle Tennessee after being arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against an offduty police officer in Nashville. … Nebraska coach Scott Frost said quarterback Tristan Gebbia was granted a release, freeing him to transfer .