How on Earth has the story not leaked yet? Honestly, tip of the cap to the mods here. I'm frustrated as hell but one can't say the rules of the board aren't being followed. lol

Screw him.

Dec. 2 Update:

According to Brian Smith’s attorney, Smith was asked to leave in the middle of the workday on Dec. 1. His attorney claims he was not given any information as to why he was being put on leave, as they also went on to say no allegations or charges have been brought against Smith at this time.

His attorney says Smith is currently on paid leave, and they deny all wrongdoing and will fight any allegations brought against him.

The university declined to comment further than the posted announcement on Dec. 1.

Total amateur hour.

The media literacy for some members on this board is quite frightening considering how good our J school is supposed to be.

You relayed your personal experience -- what your buddy in Denver said. My experience is based on this board, which consists of people who pay very close attention to Ohio Football, mostly talking about the fact that they know nothing about this right now.

I checked out the Reddit threads.

This one has the most comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/1pbxdbv/nakos_ohio_...

168 comments. 311 upvotes. Only a small fraction of those comments in the last 6 hours, everything else from yesterday. Not even a top 30 thread on /cfb over the last 24 hours.

Nobody really cares. It's not on the top story list on ESPN's college football page, it's gotten picked up by some wire/content churn sites, but those tend to have very few actual impressions.


Curious what you think they should have said, exactly?

I know some who said Hauser should have been the pick over Smith.

Sorry man, but "we should have let recruits sign with OU based on false pretenses" isn't a PR strategy. It's clear something's going to come out about Smith that ain't good, and that he's coached his last game for us.

Once the University knows that, you have to take action ahead of signing day, right? Isn't it dishonest not to?

You're prioritizing signing day success over being honest with the kids signing about who they'd be signing with.

They've got a course of action. It's underway. You're making a baseless assumption here -- that they haven't been investigating this already, and that this came completely out of the blue just because it came out of the blue for you. Bobcatblitz knew about it back in October. No doubt the University did, too.

The memo may read as "inane" but it's basically exactly what a PR agency would tell any University to do about a pending termination as a result of personal-life stuff. Put them on paid leave, share no details, name an interim replacement, move on officially when this is in the rearview. That the press release didn't include details certainly doesn't mean the University doesn't know them. Their decision's been made, and they're following the standard process as a result.

The latest developments sound eerily similar to the Cleveland Guardians gambling scandal.

Cryptic statements, abrupt paid leave, denying any wrong doing, willingness to fight in court, nobody having any clue what is going on, etc. I think if it were gambling related, the NCAA would make a statement? That's the one part missing.

I think there was a somewhat recent firing that did exactly this and it was before the transfer portal rules had changed so the recruits were essentially bound to their NLI and forced to enroll at the school for a coach they didn't get recruited by or want to play for. I'll see if I can dig something up on who that was.

In a somewhat related note, this happened to a larger degree with Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss before he was fired. They repeatedly lied to recruits about upcoming NCAA sanctions just so they could get the kids in the program. Freeze continued recruiting through the offseason but was fired in July of the following season.

You know of a lot of instances where high profile employees are suddenly put on leave for personal reasons, no details are shared, they're replaced by an interim, and they come back to work?

You know of any?


If Smith is fired without cause, the University owes him $2.5m: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2025/10/10/oh... /.

They're going to take their time documenting the sh*t out of this, doing everything by the book, and running a thorough investigation. They clearly know enough now to know the outcome; that doesn't mean they can "just do it" though.


Two options here:

1) The University put the coach on leave out of the blue, knows nothing, has no plan whatsoever, and no rationale for doing this

or

2) They have investigated enough to know the ultimate outcome and put out a statement that doesn't go against every single thing their PR/Legal teams are telling them to do and lay out a bunch of allegations against Smith.

Tough choice.


You're somehow two months behind on a 24 hour story.

Edit: You keep editing your post to try and make it more clever. Third edit in 20 minutes. Let me know when you have a final draft ready.

But we’re missing a very big key piece of this…

They announced jack shit.

Can you help me put out a press release about it first Olivia?