Smith was fired for cause last week by Ohio\u2019s president<\/a>, as the school detailed what it described as \u201caffairs\u201d Smith had with an undergraduate student and another woman while separated but not divorced from his wife. The school also alleged Smith was intoxicated during a public appearance. Smith has denied being intoxicated at an event and said the relationships were consensual.<\/p>\nSpeaking to The Athletic ahead of Tuesday\u2019s Frisco Bowl matchup against UNLV, Larscheid said he supported the university\u2019s decision and was involved in the process, but that any such issues were not on his radar before accepting the job earlier this season. Larscheid was previously the deputy AD at South Dakota State.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was surprised at what came out, but I feel very confident that university leadership acted accordingly, and we\u2019re moving forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Interim head coach John Hauser did not speak directly to the issue at the bowl press conference, only talking about his team and the matchup with UNLV.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to just talk about these guys and what we\u2019re trying to do,\u201d he said. \u201cThese guys are set up to have the best four-year run in Bobcat history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Larscheid said his coaching search will focus in after Tuesday\u2019s bowl game. A person briefed on the situation said that Hauser and former Oklahoma State quarterbacks coach Kevin Johns are among the leading candidates for the job, confirming ESPN\u2019s initial reporting.<\/p>\n
Ohio\u2019s past two head coaches after Frank Solich\u2019s 16-year run have been internal promotions. Tim Albin replaced Solich, and Smith moved up when Albin left for Charlotte last winter. The Bobcats have had just one losing season since 2009.<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s lawyer has said they plan to fight what they claim is wrongful termination. Larscheid said Monday he was the one to inform the staff and the team of the decision to fire Smith. Asked about the abrupt change at a place that hasn\u2019t had much over two decades, Larscheid said the school made the correct decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re prepared as a university and administration to make the right decisions and do it in the best interest of the program and the university,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FRISCO, Texas \u2014 Ohio athletic director Slade Larscheid said Monday he did not know of former head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[1607,399,398,396,397,25627,99],"class_list":["post-364484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-ohio-bobcats","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}