The writing was on the wall at Ohio State

One of the first things you notice wandering the halls and precincts of the well-appointed Woody Hayes Athletic Complex at Ohio State University as a visiting reporter is the abundance of signs.

Not just the ones listing the bowl-game appearances and touting national championships, but the ones promoting virtuous behavior and conduct.

Like the ones that blare, “Decisions Honesty” and, in all caps, include “TREAT WOMEN WITH RESPECT.”

Thursday the massive doors were closed to outsiders and it was probably just as well because, if the allegations out of Columbus are true, the exhortations ring sadly hollow on several levels.

If revered Buckeyes head football coach Urban Meyer kept on his staff as an assistant coach a serial wife abuser despite what he knew — or should have known — over nearly a decade, then Meyer was not only callous and tone deaf to his own message but an enabler of alleged abuse and torment.

Ohio State late Wednesday placed Meyer on paid administrative leave while investigating what he and others in the school’s employ, including his wife, knew — and when they might have known it — about alleged incidents of domestic abuse involving receivers coach Zach Smith and his ex-wife, Courtney.

Meyer fired Smith last week following reports Courtney had filed a domestic violence protection order against Smith and he had recently been charged with criminal trespass involving a May 12 incident that she claimed was the most recent episode in a series of events going back to abuse that began in 2009.

Smith’s attorney told the Columbus Dispatch the May 12 incident involved a misunderstanding.

In 2009, while a graduate assistant under Meyer at the University of Florida, Smith was arrested for aggravated battery on a pregnant victim after allegedly throwing his then-wife into a wall in their home.

She told independent college football reporter Brett McMurphy she was talked into dropping the charges by friends of Meyer, including former OSU coach Earle Bruce, who was her husband’s grandfather and Meyer’s mentor.

In 2015 in Ohio, where Smith had followed Meyer, police investigated Smith for domestic violence against Courtney, his by then estranged wife. McMurphy reported Courtney told the wives of several coaches, including Meyer’s wife, Shelley, about the incident. Smith was not charged.

McMurphy reported a text message string between Courtney and Lindsey Voltolini, the wife of the Buckeyes’ operations director, in which Lindsey wrote that Urban Meyer said Zach Smith denied the allegations.

Courtney also told McMurphy that she had regular dialogue with Shelley Meyer and, in a 2015 text, made mention of pictures of bruises she had sent the head coach’s wife, writing, “he (Zach) scares me.”

If true, that raises questions about what Meyer said when he was questioned about the situation at Big Ten media day July 23. “I was never told about anything. Never anything came to light, never had a conversation about it,” Meyer said.

One of Meyer’s favorite expressions is “That ship has sailed.” It is the way he metaphorically turns the page, dismissing events and issues he no longer deems important or wants others to think lack significance.

When he addressed reporters at Big Ten media day, where he was pointedly asked about allegations surrounding Smith, Meyer declared “that ship has sailed.”

Or, maybe, depending on what the investigation turns up, it has run aground on its own avowed principles.