It’s unclear whether Noah Spence will play for Ohio State this season — or ever again for that matter. Until then, though, head coach Urban Meyer won’t dismiss the junior defensive end.
“I treat these guys like they're my kid, and I'm not a big fan of dismissal,” he said Monday during his weekly press conference. “I just don't do that very often. It's gotta be a severe (violation), where you're hurting someone else.”
Spence, who was missed three games after testing positive for ecstasy prior to the Big Ten Championship Game in December, is indefinitely suspended after failing another drug test, sources told Eleven Warriors a day before he was supposed to make a much-anticipated return against Kent State.
Spence, who Meyer said practiced last Wednesday, won’t do so anymore.
“He's not going to practice now. That was just last week. He's getting full‑time treatment. He is working out just for his well‑being,” Meyer said.
Meyer, who preaches a "zero-tolerance" policy for missteps that violate Ohio State’s core values (which are painted on wall in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center), said there’s a balance to be had beween discipline and looking out for Spence’s best interests.
“I am doing the best — not I — Ohio State University. It's an institution based on educating people so we're doing our very best … what the future holds for Noah, I have no idea,” he said.
“But to throw him to the street, I didn't feel like that was appropriate just yet. And we're going to do the best we can to help a guy that was an academic All‑Big Ten, good student, great family, that has a problem. It's our job to help him, and I don't think you will ever see our staff ever do that, say ‘You're out,’ in that kind of situation. Unfortunately sometimes it's not our decision.”
The Big Ten conference's handbook states any player who fails two drug tests is declared permanently ineligible from competition. Spence, reportedly, has an opportunity to file an appeal.
Added junior linebacker Joshua Perry: “This is the time where you gotta surround him with people who care and you can’t abandon him and I think that guys on our team understand that he’s dealing with a really tough thing in his life and that, you know, we’re gonna get him help. But to be around him has made a difference, guys are looking after him, you put an arm around him and you try to help him. It’s the most positive thing you can do.
“He’s got a lot to deal with, there’s a lot on his plate and people are saying some negative things about him and he realizes it but when he’s surrounded by us and he gets around people that he knows care, I think he becomes a little bit of a different person knowing that he’s got these guys around him.
Perry said Spence is still around the team “and guys will go out of there way to say hi to him or to visit him at his apartment, I think it’s the right thing to do.”
“We’ve got a group of guys — especially on our defense — that care a lot about him,” Perry said. “We want to be there to help him.”
Spence, whose parents told the Columbus Dispatch their son has a “medical illness,” will start a rehabilitation program, according to ESPN.com’s Brett McMurphy.
