Urban Meyer: ‘I Made a Mistake, I Did Not Lie’

In part two of an ESPN interview, Ohio State University head football coach Urban Meyer, who was recently suspended for three games over his handling of domestic-abuse allegations against Zach Smith, said that he “should have reacted” to “red flags” with the former assistant coach. “Looking back now, when you take 2009 and take 2015, it would have been a very hard thing to do, but I would have fired him,” Meyer said. Smith was arrested in an alleged domestic-abuse incident in 2009 but was not charged, and he was accused of domestic abuse in 2015 by his wife, Courtney Smith. Meyer also denied asking a staff member how to delete old text messages, despite an OSU report earlier in the summer that indicated he was concerned about members of the media potentially reading his messages. Meyer told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi that he didn’t recall the conversation and had “no concern” over the media gaining access to his phone. Meyer also said that he regretted his “misstatements” to the media about his knowledge of the 2015 domestic-abuse allegations leveled against Smith. “I made a mistake, I did not lie,” Meyer said. “I don’t lie to people. If you’re gonna ask me a question and I incorrectly answer that question or if I misspoke, to me, there’s a big difference.”