Urban Meyer talks about managing Zach Smith's allegations and his reaction to Courtney Smith

"I can not tell you exactly what was my state of mind at the time," Meyer told Rinaldi in an interview broadcast Sunday morning.

Meyer also admitted that he had "made a mistake" in his treatment of Smith.

"I made a mistake when I made the decision to do my best to stabilize this situation," said Meyer. "And one of the things I'm looking back at now – I should have probably fired it."

Meyer was banned from coaching the first three games of the Buckeyes because of his handling of allegations of spousal abuse against Smith and the manner in which he represented the allegations in July. Meyer's three-game suspension is over on Sunday.

Meyer, suspended without pay, had been allowed to participate in the practice over the past two weeks.

Smith was fired in July after a preliminary hearing on a criminal charge and a report detailing allegations of domestic violence against Smith by his wife, Courtney Smith, in 2009 and 2015. Smith was arrested. during the 2009 incident, while the Ohio police did not file a complaint in 2015.

Meyer told Rinaldi that he had addressed the 2009 arrest the day after his arrest and that the couple had denied the incident involving domestic violence.

"It was said that it was not domestic violence, that she had thrown it out of the house and that there would not have been any." Charges, "said Meyer. "I was completely dependent on the information of the security forces.There were no charges."

Meyer denied having been informed of textual messages between Courtney Smith and his wife, Shelley, regarding allegations of abuse in 2015. He declined to "speak on his behalf" regarding how Shelley Meyer managed his interactions with Courtney Smith.

"She has reasons why she has not reacted," Meyer said. "And I'm not here to speak on behalf of Shelley, but she had reasoning and her reasoning was what it was.That's why she did not alert me or went elsewhere. with that."

Meyer said that he had decided to hire Smith in 2012 for someone to know his offense. Smith was also assistant under Meyer while he was head coach of Florida.

"Zach seemed to be a very good guy," Meyer told Rinaldi. "And I checked, I checked the background with the coaches he was working with, he came back very high, very high, and so I decided to hire him to Ohio State. "

Ohio State Football has a list of "core values" that includes treating women with respect. Asked about how Courtney Smith was respected or protected by the program, Meyer acknowledged that "it's a difficult question now that all the information is available."

"I thought the best thing I could do with a very difficult marriage, with a problem of childcare, and I really thought about it," Meyer said. "I thought the best thing I could do was help stabilize this thing, if I dismiss it at that point, break that relationship and see these two young children, and that's why I always thought about how to help stabilize somebody.

"At the time, I thought I was making the right choice."

Meyer was criticized for not making a direct apology to Courtney Smith at a press conference on Aug. 22 announcing her suspension. He tweeted a public apology to Courtney Smith on August 24th.

He told Rinaldi that he associates Courtney Smith with an "extremely difficult situation".

"A very disturbed marriage, a situation that I would have liked to know more about and would have liked to do more," Meyer said.

Meyer said that it broke my heart to hear that Courtney Smith would believe that he would choose to help and allow an abuser. He added that he was sorry for the perception that he had not taken the allegations seriously.