Ohio State findings: Urban Meyer seems to have deleted his old text messages before handing over phone

The news of Urban Meyer’s three-game suspension sent shockwaves around college football Wednesday night.

Meyer was slapped with a suspension due to his handling of the domestic allegations brought against his former assistant Zach Smith in 2015. Following Ohio State’s press conference, the university released the summary of findings. You can find the entire report here, and we encourage you to read it.

There were a few big things that left us scratching our heads, and among them, Meyer looks to have deleted his old text messages before handing over his phone to investigators. If you look below at c-ii, it says, “Upon seeing this report (Brett McMurphy’s initial report) when it first came out (at about 10:17 a.m.), Brian Voltolini, who was on the practice field with coach Meyer went to speak with him, commenting that this was ‘a bad article.’ The two discussed at that time whether the media could get access to Coach Meyer’s phone so that text messages older than one year would be deleted.”

And wouldn’t you know it, when investigators reviewed Meyer’s phone, they found no text messages older than one year, just as the two coaches had discussed. Coincidence? So, Meyer’s first move upon hearing the initial report was to delete his old text messages. That feels like a guilty conscience.

You can read that section of the report below: