Ohio St must fire Urban Meyer, Greg Schiano, Kevin Wilson and their AD and any other athletic department staff that have looked the other way on the football, wrestling, and diving scandals.
Sadly, Ohio St fans will continue to anchor to their eventual former head coach because, well, football. They fear losing competitiveness on the football field more than they desire to do the right thing for their university long term, for all women, and for the young men in their program currently learning how to not be a man. But if they could only step away from the situation they would realize that there is ONLY one solution to the problem that they have created.
The competitiveness on the Ohio St football field either takes a hit now or a much bigger one over a much longer timeframe later. Let's say Ohio St tries to keep their current staff and AD. Here is what is very likely.
First, from a university wide impact, students will lose their trust. True, many are already fully indoctrinated in their football mania. But they are also smart enough to see the many data points in a horrific trend.
1) Ohio St wrestlers permitted to be sexually abused by a long time Ohio St employee for decades
2) Diving team scandal with more student athletes abused
3) Coach Meyer rehiring and promoting a coach at Ohio St that he knew had spouse abuse issues
4) Ohio St and Meyer allowing spouse abuser coach to continue to coach since 2015 until 2018 when the public found out about the 2015 incident
5) Meyer lying publically about his knowledge of the wife abuser's 2015 incident
6) Meyer not really apologizing even after changing his statement when evidence is publically available days after he lied about his knowledge of the wife abuser's 2015 incident
7) Defensive Coordinator Greg Schiano having worked directly under Sandusky and fired from his last job for autoritarian style
8) Offensive Coordinator Kevin Wilson fired from his last job at Indiana for mistreating and abusing players including forcing them to play through major injuries against medical staff judgment
9) Meyer's history of cheating on his wife while at Florida with coeds the same age as his own daughters
10) Meyer's fallout left behind at Florida from having no discipline on that team and eventually having a team full of criminals to include murderer Aaron Hernandez who was suspended for one game with one of his many run ins with the law
11) Ohio St hired both Schiano (who Tennessee very publically rejected) and Wilson despite their previous scandals and player abuses just like they hired Meyer after his infidelity and legal issues at Florida that lead to a mental breakdown and implosion of that program, just like Meyer rehired Zach Smith while intimately knowing about his spouse abuse problem, get the picture? Ohio St is intentionally bringing in people who win but seem to completely lack any morals and have long histories of abuse.
So any reasonably informed student and parent much less student athlete really has very little trust that they will not also be subject to mistreatment and abuse as the prominent Ohio St staff and administration have not just permitted but actually perpetrated abuses themselves.
Meyer, who is already underperforming with the ridiculous amount of talent on that team, will begin to lose more and more top recruits. Why would any recruit with power 5 options chose a school with a history of abusing, sexually molesting, and mistreating its student athletes with a head coach in Meyer who very publically lies, covers for abuse, cheats on his own spouse, and hires abusers such as Smith, Offensive Coordinator Kevin Wilson who abused and mistreated players at Indiana, and Defensive Coordinator Greg Schiano who was very publically rejected by Tennessee for his former scandals and authoritarian style?
It's not like one incident which potentially may or may not be all of the information. It is widespread abuse scandals touching several Ohio St teams, the head football coach and both of his coordinators, all with multiple abuse issues. It is pervasive. You can't explain all of it away even through the most scarlet colored lenses. Eventually all recruits will have common knowledge of the pervasive abuses tied to Ohio St and particularly the men leading it's football program. They have to know that they would be in the hands of people who have abused, lied, looked the other way, and mistreated many before them. No amount of former draft picks can undo that. No amount of $500 hand shakes would make a reasonable person take a risk on an entire program of untrustworthy people. Recruiting will slowly die as people become more and more informed. And Meyer is already underperforming.
So Ohio St can rip the bandage off quickly now or they can die a slow death with public admission of their support of abuse for the sake of football. I suspect their administration is smart enough to swallow the pill now instead of killing the golden goose for a better 2018 season. I suspect most Ohio St fans know that is the right thing to do for their future and standing up to abusers, those who look the other way, and those who are silent in the face of evil.