
PISCATAWAY, NJ – OCTOBER 24: Head coach Urban Meyer of the Ohio State Buckeyes during a game against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at High Point Solutions Stadium on October 24, 2015 in Piscataway, New Jersey. (Photo by Rich Schultz /Getty Images)Wednesday, former ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy released a report on Facebook, alleging that Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer lied when he said at Big Ten Media Days last week he had no knowledge of 2015 allegations of domestic violence against wide receivers coach Zach Smith. In the time since, McMurphy has made a number of appearances on both television and radio to talk about the case.One of this interviews came Thursday with his former colleague Bruce Feldman. McMurphy was asked exactly how he broke the story, and he divulged all:“He was so cut and dry that he did not know about it. If you guys remember, Monday night, I reported about the 2015 incident and now he’s saying it didn’t happen. I made it up out of thin air. His direct quote was “who would create such a story?”Well, I would create such a story because I had the police documents. So once that happened, what that made me do was made me report more and then follow the breadcrumbs. And here we are waiting to see the ultimate fate of Urban Meyer.…so I guess about a week or two before Big Ten Media Days, I started looking into the Zach Smith domestic violence issues and then I, through a public records request, found the information that I reported at Big Ten Media Days.Basically, I was still trying to report, see what I could find out. You keep making calls, pushing for different things. So when Urban said the quotes on Tuesday, all of a sudden it was like red flags went up. Wait, this doesn’t make sense. Why in the world is he denying this? There’s a police report, etc. I kept reporting, kept looking around. Eventually, I was able to contact Courtney Smith. I tracked her down.I said “I’d like to talk to you.” She agreed to talk to me. The first time I talked to her on the phone we talked for two and a half hours. It was unbelievable details – just everything she had gone through.At that point, this story was the abuse of Zach Smith against her – an ex-wife of the wide receivers coach. At that point, I had no clue what Urban Meyer did or didn’t know.So we talked a couple more times on the phone and I’m trying to write this story. And I basically, I knew as a journalist that I have to talk to her in person. This is not a phone interview.So I flew to Columbus. I spent three days there and I talked to her. I went over every detail that she gave me. I told her “you don’t have to convince me this is accurate. You have to convince everyone out there that’s not going to believe your story.” I need documents, emails, text messages, photos, whatever you have.She provided all of those. She provided all of those. So I went through everything line by line. What date was this sent on? What day did you receive this? What’s this from? Specifically – so there was no misunderstanding. I told her that if she had any information that I could not verify that I was not going to report it.So at that time when I finally was comfortable that I had went through all of these potential – not issues, but made sure I had all my bases covered, because again I don’t have 50 editors looking at this. I’m basically on my own.At that point, and during that process, it hit me with like “holy cow, Urban Meyer knew about this.” But wait, he just said Tuesday he didn’t know about it. So then, the shift of the story changed. That was never my intention.Ultimately, when I was finished reporting it, then Wednesday, that’s when I was ready. I felt comfortable to go with it. And then I reported it on Facebook Wednesday morning.”Now, we wait to see what Ohio State decides on Urban Meyer’s fate. In the meantime, Ryan Day has been named the team’s interim head coach.
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