Ohio State Director of Athletics and Vice President Gene Smith issued a statement Wednesday morning via his Twitter account apologizing to Michigan and its athletic director Warde Manuel for comments he made a day earlier regarding college football programs holding spring practice in Florida.
STATEMENT: My comments at a soccer press conference yesterday were not meant to discredit our rival. I apologize to ...
— gene smith (@OSU_AD) March 23, 2016
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...UM student-athletes & my good friend Warde Manuel. We at OSU look forward to continuing the greatest rivalry in collegiate football.
— gene smith (@OSU_AD) March 23, 2016
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Smith's original quote caused a stir on Twitter and elsewhere Tuesday afternoon and into the evening when asked about it at a press conference promoting the international soccer match set to be held at Ohio Stadium July 27. He disagreed with the idea of holding football practice out of state and during spring break, something Michigan and Jim Harbaugh did earlier this month at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
"If we were jump starting our program I'd probably try to do that too, but we're not jump starting our program," Smith said. "We're at a different place."
Urban Meyer said last week he and Ohio State were "looking into" potentially moving spring drills south in the future, but downplayed the idea Tuesday because he does not want to take his players' spring break from them.
"Would we look into it? We look into everything," Meyer said Tuesday. "But I can’t see taking spring break away from players. That doesn’t mean we don’t research it and keep an eye on it.
"We look into everything, but we wouldn’t take their free time from them. If there’s someway to do something like that that helps the players, we’d look into it."
Ohio State won a Big Ten and College Football Playoff National Championship as well as 50 games during Meyer's first four years as head football coach in Columbus. The 2015 season was the first matchup between him and a Harbaugh-coached team on the gridiron.
Ohio State won convincingly, 42-13, which led to Smith's statement on how the Buckeye program is no longer where it was when Meyer took over ahead of the 2012 season. It is four years beyond that, unlike Michigan, which is in its second spring with a new coach. Many misunderstood the comment, however.
Harbaugh, though, posted his own comment about Smith's statement to Twitter Tuesday evening. He even brought in the scandal that ultimately is responsible for Meyer being Ohio State's coach.
Good to see Director Smith being relevant again after the tattoo fiasco. Welcome back!
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) March 23, 2016
Many Buckeyes past and present responded to Harbaugh's comment in their own breath on Twitter late Tuesday.
Wednesday morning, Smith cleared the air.
