Will Urban Meyer survive? More questions than answers at Ohio State

COLUMBUS — This is uncharted territory for Urban Meyer and Ohio State.

So, before digging into the paid administrative leave for the seventh-year coach any deeper, let’s make one thing clear: There is no way to know for sure how exactly this process is going to play out for the Buckeyes.

There are a set of facts to work with moving forward, starting with the criminal trespass and past allegations against Zach Smith that started this whole mess that has tripped up Meyer’s smooth-running machine just two days before training camp. There is the firing of Smith, which is the most drastic step that can be taken on a coaching staff. And there is Ohio State’s decision on Wednesday to put Ryan Day in charge of the program while it investigates what Meyer knew, when he knew it and whether he acted appropriately with whatever information he had.

But even all of those baseline truths come with respective uncertainty.

Smith’s latest case has still not been resolved, and he has continued to receive a passionate defense from his lawyer that there were good reasons he was never charged in the past and that the latest one will be dismissed. On the flip side, Courtney Smith also showed tremendous courage to come public with her story and with plenty of supporting evidence that she had tried to get help from Ohio State previously during her on-camera interview with Stadium.

Meyer could have continued to fight for Smith even over the last couple weeks, but instead he chose loyalty to the program over the deep family ties he has with Earle Bruce’s grandson and his longtime assistant. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t deserve a second chance after Florida and should have never been hired in the first place.

Then there’s what Meyer was aware of in 2015 when the key events transpired, which were exhaustively reported by Brett McMurphy and beg the questions about when the championship-winning coach found out the details. He was adamant at Big Ten media days that it was all news to him, but that story seems increasingly hard to believe based on Courtney Smith’s account — even if those police reports had Zach Smith’s name redacted. Again, a fresh can of worms has been spilled with no obvious way to clean them up.

No clear-cut answers for Urban Meyer, Ohio State

All of this would obviously be so much easier for Ohio State if there were clear-cut answers. Since there aren’t at this point, it’s a logical, reasonable step to place Urban Meyer on leave and launch an investigation. If one of the most decorated coaches in college football were plainly guilty of a coverup, Gene Smith surely wouldn’t have hesitated to part ways and would have had ample contractual cover to fire Meyer with cause. That didn’t happen, which suggests there is still a path forward for him to return to the sideline where he won his third national championship.

With Urban Meyer on paid administrative leave, Ryan Day is now Ohio State’s acting coach. (Birm/Lettermen Row)

Of course, there was also enough uncertainty that Ohio State didn’t come out and immediately absolve Meyer of any blame. Considering Meyer’s own core value of respecting women, his prominent position as the face of the university and the potential stain on both future recruiting and current discipline, an outcome that means he has coached his last game in the Horseshoe can’t be ruled out either.

It’s hard to believe that protecting a wide receivers coach would be worth everything Meyer would have to risk, especially just to keep a position coach who had ups and downs purely on the football field. But again, that’s something else that nobody absolutely knows for sure at this point.

How long will it take to find out all the answers? There can’t be anybody who could nail that down definitively.

Is Ohio State going to be more transparent about all this? It had better be if it wants any sort of outcome the public can fully support.

How is this going to end? The crystal ball has never been cloudier for the Buckeyes.

There are very few things that everybody can agree on factually right now. Even the choice to make Day that acting head coach over Greg Schiano or Kevin Wilson is going to prompt some debates.

This situation is going to require patience, and it’s going to be important for everybody involved both inside and outside the program to let the rest of the facts come in before making a judgement.

There’s no map for this path Ohio State finds itself walking. But the first step for the Buckeyes appears to be one in the right direction, even though the ultimate destination is a mystery for now.