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WATCH: Dan Patrick calls Urban Meyer’s behavior ’embarrassing and shameful’
By Keith Farner
Published:
Native Ohioan Dan Patrick, who has family members who graduated from Ohio State, offered a passionate opinion on Urban Meyer’s behavior at Ohio State in the last week, and reporting that surfaced in the last month.
On his radio program Monday morning, Patrick opened his monologue by saying that Meyer has been a frequent guest on the show. He didn’t give Meyer a pass for his handling of the Zach Smith domestic violence accusations and reports of what information Meyer knew and if he reported the claims.
“That doesn’t mean he’s cordoned off from criticism, because he should be criticized,” Patrick said. “What happened this last week, what happened the last month is embarrassing and shameful. And I truly believe that Urban Meyer, the reason he didn’t say anything about Courtney Smith, the woman who is alleged to have been domestically abused, is he doesn’t believe that she was. Or she was complicit somehow in this.”
Patrick carried the opinion that others have in that Meyer’s only still employed by Ohio State because of his winning success. Patrick called the coach and enabler, and only apologized on Friday because, “the optics were so bad … you look so insensitive.”
“Maybe he wants to believe Zach Smith, but here’s the problem, he’s an enabler,” Patrick said. “He’s enabled Zach Smith. Tell me another coach who survives this, any of this stuff.”
Patrick added that he believes Meyer should have been fired a long time ago, but didn’t buy the notion that Meyer kept Zach Smith because of his relationship with Smith’s grandfather, Earle Bruce, as a mentor.
“Urban has to know that Earle wouldn’t have put up with this,” Patrick said. “It’s almost as if Earle Bruce would have been prouder with Urban for doing the right thing. … Whether he coaches next year, we’ll see how this season plays out, but I was really disappointed.”
Patrick also didn’t believe Meyer’s memory loss explanation because of alleged deleted text messages.
“You can’t have it both ways,” Patrick said.
DP’s take on Urban Meyer: “It’s embarrassing and shameful.” pic.twitter.com/doXpq5F6A5
— Dan Patrick Show (@dpshow) August 27, 2018
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
