I've said many times and still believe that Urban Meyer keeps his job. Gene, I'm not so sure about, but he probably keeps his, too. Zach getting his job back? Less than zero chance.

I also want to state that these are my personal opinions. If someone is telling you today that they know what is going to happen to Urban Meyer, they are lying. Nobody knows. OSU has this locked down.

Don't want to throw too much rain on the party, but there won't be an announcement today. Look for something Sunday or Monday at the earliest. This is more than just a hunch.

Caveat: I'm wrong a lot!

I didn't get that impression from his comments at all.

Right. I think there's a less than zero chance Zach Smith gets his job back. I continue to believe Meyer keeps his job, though.

Good point. At least Omaha is near Lincoln. Similar to how Norman is close to OKC.

With State College, you're just there in the middle of nowhere.

Looks like we were missing quite a few people from the masthead. Thanks for the heads-up!

when you posted  "He knew. We knew. Everyone knew!"

Where was this written or said? I know I never said anything like that.

he didn't lie because as it turns out, there *was* nothing in 2015 but an unsubstantiated allegation.  that means "nothing".

Gene Smith called Zach Smith home from a recruiting trip. Clearly it was not nothing to Ohio State.

Jason, does 11W know anything that hasn't been reported to this point?

No. We are pursuing things that haven't been reported, but we don't know anything that hasn't been reported at this point.

Thank you, sir. I really appreciate that. Most of us are fans, but we don't want our beat writers to be fans. We want them to be as objective as possible.

Thank you. This isn't an easy issue to tackle, particularly given the political climate we live in and how it's been framed by some of that.

We're trying to be objective, fair, thorough and accurate. More importantly, I've tried to be transparent regarding what we've known, how we've handled things, etc.

If that's the case, this part of the comment doesn't fly:

and got clarification that he was talking specifically about arrests?

The full audio from the morning in the hallway is posted above for everyone to listen to.

The site is busier than normal right now, no doubt. But again, this was posted in the forum. Not the front page of the site and is a direct result of commenters banging on Dan in the comments of his piece yesterday.

Somewhat related: Ohio State firing Urban is bad for business. In the short term, there'd be a lot of site activity, but Urban Meyer wins football games at a greater clip than any other coach. Winning is good for business.

That's fair. I think it's also fair to say we are interpreting this in different ways from different vantage points (media and fans).

Again, if this was Jim Harbaugh, was he lying?

Dang it! Fixed that very, very unfortunate typo.

Oh, c'mon. First of all, we put this in the forum, and not on the front page. Secondly, we're bringing this up because Dan wrote a great piece about the allegations from Zach Smith's mother and Courtney Smith's mother and there were still commenters banging on him for claiming Urban lied.

Dan Hope has impeccable integrity and is a great writer, delivering news in an balanced and unbiased manner. 

I think it's pretty simple. Those of us who are predisposed to take Urban at his word see a difficult question to answer and forgive what is we see as a costly faux pas. Those not predisposed see a lie and potential for coverup. None of us will actually know what his intent was.

This is interesting. I will say that we collectively on the staff are predisposed to take Urban at his word when he speaks at press conferences. He's blunt and never really fibs, which makes the whole Chicago thing seem remarkable.

Tim did not speak to Meyer the next morning. He spoke to him the morning of July 24.

But it's also fair to say the media is jumping through mental hoops to try and stick it to Urban Meyer, and that unfortunately includes 11w.

How is that possibly true? We reported on Smith's arrest for criminal trespassing because that is newsworthy. We reported on the allegations surfaced by Brett McMurphy, because, again, that is newsworthy. Finally, we reported on what Zach's mother and Courtney's mother had to say because that was newsworthy as well. If you read carefully, we've never said any of this was true and used the words "said" and "alleges."

We've never taken an editorial position. There's no column on this site that says "Urban Meyer should be fired and here's why..."

I'd just ask that people try to separate the fact that there are allegations they don't like from what you are claiming.

Something seems amiss with your coverage of this entire situation from the beginning, and I can't help but thinking you're sitting on some info you won't report.  I think it says a lot that you're willing to allow these discussions in a public forum, but your coverage seems slanted.

We're not sitting on anything, and we've tried to be objective. It feels like we're taking heat because we are not circling the wagons for Meyer, though many of us privately believe he should keep his job. Our job is not to advocate one way or another in this, but to let the facts come out. We will explain our coverage when needed, like this post.

Meyer was clearly misleading There is debate over the word lie. And to your credit, I think it’s reasonable that 11W take a harder stance on this than the rest of us might, as it’s your job.

That's fair and a big part of this. Although some of us (not all) are Ohio State fans on staff, we have to remain objective.

I think some people here are jumping through mental hoops because they like Meyer and he coaches their favorite team, which I get. But I think those people should honestly ask themselves if this was Jim Harbaugh, or hell, any random coach, whether this would be considered a lie.

Where did he acknowledge it? How about in his own statement:

My words, whether in reply to a reporter's question or in addressing a personnel issue, must be clear compassionate and most of all, completely accurate

I failed on many of these fronts. My intention was not to say anything inaccurate or misleading

In that statement, he said he was aware of the 2015 incident and reported it to proper channels. He was repeatedly asked about 2015 in Chicago and feigned ignorance. Why not say he was aware of an incident but that he couldn't find evidence supporting an arrest?

Second of all, after Snook's report yesterday are we even sure that "there was nothing" is even a lie? If Snook's report is true then it sounds like there was nothing there.

Possibly. But Zach did say that Gene called him while he was on the road recruiting and told him to come home, so at least, institutionally at Ohio State, there was "something" there.

I don't think misleading the media that day is grounds for termination, but from our perspective, it's clear he was being untruthful.

Jeff used to cover Ohio State as a credentialed member of the beat. Search his name on Amazon and you'll see a couple of books he's published (the one on Art Schlichter is particularly good).