That certainly didn’t take long.
Not long after new allegations first surfaced, Ohio State announced in a statement the dismissal of wide receivers coach Zach Smith. Per the school’s very terse and brief press release, "[c]oaching staff adjustments will be announced at a later date.”
Last week, news broke that Smith (pictured, right) had been cited May 12 on one count of criminal trespassing. The situation stemmed from a disagreement with Smith’s ex-wife as the Buckeyes assistant was dropping off at least one of their two sons.
Monday, college football insider Brett McMurphy reported that 33-year-old Courtney Smith had subsequently obtained a domestic violence civil protection order against her ex-husband in connection to that incident. The order was served to Zach Smith Friday afternoon, and could extend out for five years if a judge doesn’t alter it at a hearing next month.
The order currently states that "[t]he court finds... [Courtney Smith] is in immediate and present danger of domestic violence.”
Further damaging Smith’s ability to continue on as an OSU assistant, McMurphy went on to report that Smith was arrested in June of 2009 for aggravated battery of a pregnant victim. Courtney Smith, who was nearly three months pregnant, ultimately opted not to pursue charges against Zach Smith, who was a football staffer under Urban Meyer at Florida at the time.
Additionally, ElevenWarriors.com reported that police officers were called to a residence in October of 2015 regarding further allegations of domestic abuse involving the coach and his ex-wife. The OSU-centric website wrote that, according to a police report, “a domestic incident happened last night at [Courtney’s] home and that she has been a victim of sustained physical abuse by the suspect.”
No further details of that 2015 incident were made available.
In the 2009 incident, it’s alleged that Zach Smith picked up his then-pregnant-wife, Courtney Smith, by her t-shirt “and threw her against the bedroom wall located upstairs in their apartment.” “From the statements made on scene, [the officers] determined Zach was the primary aggressor,” the police report from that first incident stated.
The couple finalized their divorce in 2015.
Smith, the 34-year-old grandson of former OSU head coach Earle Bruce, has been on Meyer’s staff each of the six seasons since the head coach came to the Buckeyes in 2012, and would’ve been entering his seventh season with the program in 2018. He also worked under Meyer as a graduate assistant and quality control coach at Florida from 2005-09. Smith, a 2007 UF graduate, coached at Marshall (2010) and Temple (2011) before reuniting with Meyer in Columbus.
Meyer will take the podium Tuesday morning at 10:30 a.m. as part of the Big Ten’s Media Days.