Ohio State is getting blasted for Twitter graphic with 'silence' message

Ohio State got quite a bit of backlash for a graphic it sent out on its football Twitter account on Wednesday morning.

And, frankly, it was warranted.

Here is the graphic, which was later deleted, in question:

Ohio State, ranked No. 4 in the country, is headed to one of the tougher road environments in the country, Penn State’s “whiteout,” where ninth-ranked PSU crams more than 100,000 fans into Beaver Stadium all wearing white for a nighttime kickoff.

So you can see where OSU was going with the graphic. Beaver Stadium is going to be really, really loud and the Buckeyes want to “silence the white noise.”

But silence takes a much different connotation coming from Ohio State

Urban Meyer is back on the sidelines for Ohio State after serving a three-game suspension for the way he handled former assistant Zach Smith over the years. Smith was hired by Meyer when he arrived at OSU in 2012 and remained on staff until July, when Meyer fired him. All the while, Smith had been accused of domestic violence, among other transgressions, against his now ex-wife Courtney Smith.

Meyer and others on staff were aware of the those issues, including a 2015 domestic violence allegation, but kept Smith on staff the whole time.

There was also the issue of Meyer’s cell phone. In the Ohio State-commissioned investigative report that ultimately led to Meyer’s suspension, it was revealed that Meyer asked a staff member whether the media would be able to access his phone and “specifically discussed how to adjust the settings” on his phone so that “text messages older than one year would be deleted.”

Meyer has denied that he deleted any texts or that he asked a staff member about his text messages.

With that said, you can see where a message of “silence” could rub a lot of people the wrong way. In a tweet posted and quickly deleted, OSU seemed to acknowledge that sentiment.

The replies to the tweet, with “tone deaf” being a common takeaway, certainly make that clear:

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