COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ezekiel Elliott would have been better to keep his criticism of Ohio State coaches in-house, but he has the right to express his frustrations, Buckeyes athletic director Gene Smith said Monday. Smith would not say if Elliott will be punished by coach Urban Meyer.
“He’s like any other person; he has the right to share his feelings,” Smith told CBS Sports. “I felt bad for him because he obviously was hurting emotionally and he’s a passionate person. Those things are more appropriately deal with in-house, but he’s got his rights like everybody else. He expressed his feelings and now he’s got to focus on taking care of his business each day.”
After Ohio State’s 17-14 loss to Michigan State, Elliott said he was “disappointed” in the play calling that resulted in only 12 carries for the star tailback. Elliott was critical that Ohio State didn’t continue to run gap schemes.
“Honestly, we didn’t see those plays for the rest of the game,” Elliott said. “Those plays weren’t called anymore. I asked for those plays to be called, and they weren’t. It just hurts. It hurts a lot because of how we lost. I feel like we just weren’t put in the right opportunity to win this game. We weren’t put in the right situations to win this game.”
And more from Elliott: “It is kind of something we've seen all season, honestly. We’ll have some momentum, we're calling plays that work and then we kind of try to get away from it and try to get cute and run some other stuff.”
The comments have created a national debate on whether players should publicly criticize coaches in any circumstance. Former college basketball coach Fran Fraschilla posted on Twitter, “If Urban Meyer plays Ezekiel Elliott next Saturday, I just wasted 30 bucks on his new book. Above The Line. Need to do the right thing.”
Smith said that although he wishes Elliott kept his comments private, “we’ve got to recognize today that people have rights and he’s a man growing. He’s going to the next level. Two months from now, he’ll be chasing that dream in a different way (in the NFL) so he has to accept responsibilities with how he handles himself. As he moves into the pros, he’s learned a lesson here and he’ll know how to handle himself moving forward.
“He’s a good human being. The sad part is people are focused on the comments. They should focus on the fact he’s a good human being who expressed his opinion. We tend to make things bigger than they are.”
Smith said the comments don’t suggest to him there were chemistry problems within Ohio State’s team this season.
“Not at all,” he said. “It’s a young man caught up in the passion of the moment. He expressed his opinion in frustration. Everyone in life has done that somewhere -- you, me, everyone. Maybe not publicly. Maybe not in that situation. It doesn’t say anything about the chemistry of this team. Otherwise we wouldn’t be 48-4 (under Meyer).”