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WALLY HALL: Meyer makes moves to try to save his job

Sunday night, just after watching Big Brother, Twitter was checked.

Emails get checked all day, right up until bed time, and Twitter most of the day. Yours truly posts on Twitter, but mostly from games and never when going to buy groceries.

Obviously, there are tons of comments about Urban Meyer and whether or not he'll be fired.

Just to catch everyone up, Meyer has been suspended with pay while an investigation is conducted to see whether he withheld information about spousal abuse committed by assistant coach Zach Smith, who was fired last month after his ex-wife filed charges when he ignored a restraining order.

On Friday, Meyer and Smith threw Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith under the bus, now claiming he knew about the 2015 allegations.

Let's set the record straight: Smith was fired July 23, the day Brett McMurphy first filed a story on his Facebook page with Courtney Smith, the abused now ex-wife, as his source.

On July 24 at Big Ten media day, Meyer was asked about the alleged abuse and claimed no knowledge of any incidents.

Here's where a point has to be made: Meyer didn't lie to the media, he lied to every single person who reads a newspaper, watches TV, listens to the radio, reads Facebook and Twitter, and goes on websites or Instagram (not sure what that is but have heard of it).

Media are the messengers, the watchdogs of the people.

The media didn't lie that day. Urban Meyer gave that million-mile stare and boldly made false statements.

It should be comforting to Razorback Nation to know it is highly unlikely something like this happens at the University of Arkansas with Hunter Yurachek as AD and Chad Morris as head football coach.

These guys are do-righters. One of the first things Morris did was move media day off Sunday to a Saturday so he, his staff and the players could go to church. Anyway.

On Wednesday, Meyer was suspended after McMurphy printed another story on his Facebook page documenting texts indicating Meyer knew about the 2015 incident. On Thursday, Ohio State announced its investigative team that includes Jo Ann Davidson, the first female speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives; former acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Craig Morford; former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Carter Stewart; and current university trustees Alex Fischer, Janet Porter and Alex Shumate.

Mary Jo White, the former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is leading the investigative team. She is a senior chairman with the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton and a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. This woman has zero ties to Ohio State and has spent most of her career investigating white-collar crime.

The red flag is the group is supposed to have its final conclusion within two weeks, or midway through fall practices.

No doubt Meyer on Friday positioned himself to return or to be bought out of his contract. His claim he talked to the AD means Ohio State probably can not fire him for cause.

There is no doubt Meyer's winning record is blinding a lot of the fan base that is pointing a finger at the media for reporting the truth and the rest of their fingers at his gaudy 73-8 record at Ohio State. That's a 90 percent winning percentage. Nick Saban is 86 percent at Alabama.

The two coaches to win national championships before Meyer at Ohio State, Woody Hayes and Jim Tressel, were fired. Meyer won his championship for the Buckeyes in 2014, but his problems started in 2009 when Zach Smith was part of Meyer's Florida staff and was first accused of spousal abuse.

Sports on 08/07/2018

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