The Ohio State football team’s marketing wing either doesn’t get out much or is incredibly adept at pointing out the school’s own flaws.
The No. 4-ranked Buckeyes have a big game this weekend; they travel to Happy Valley to play No. 9-ranked Penn State. So, the team’s social media account decided to hype up the matchup Thursday morning with this tweet:
The Buckeyes’ theme this week apparently is “silence” — which is quite ironic given the events in Columbus over the last month.
Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer returned just 10 days ago from a three-game suspension that was the result of his own silence: Meyer misrepresented what he knew about former Buckeyes wide receiver coach Zach Smith’s abuse of his ex-wife, Courtney Smith, and had a “blind spot” for his assistant’s past, according to the school’s own investigation.
A report from college football reporter Brett McMurphy suggested Meyer knew of Zach Smith’s abuse as early as 2015 but kept him on staff for years.
Unfortunately, the irony doesn’t stop there; Penn State has its own sordid history with silence, as a grand jury investigation found late head coach Joe Paterno and several other members of the school’s administration failed to report Jerry Sandusky’s repeated incidents of child sexual abuse.
Alas, none of this stopped Ohio State going all-in on the “silence” mantra, even including the word in the cover photo of its Twitter background.
At least the Buckeyes are on the same page as their head coach.
