I just watched my alma mater's press conference detailing punishment of Urban Meyer and his athletic director for not acting upon reports of domestic abuse by an assistant coach on Meyer's Ohio State football team.

It was filled with regret. Like the kind you'd hear from a corporate CFO after a bad quarterly report.

I don't even know where to start. Amateur hour, throughout.

The lead of the investigating committee summarized its report including a key finding that Meyer didn't intentionally lie at Big Ten media days about knowing of 2015 accusations against assistant Zach Smith. Except he very apparently did.

OSU president Michael Drake repeated corporate-speak gibberish, including that the university strove to achieve a resolution that was "fair, just, equitable and appropriate." He said that twice. OSU alumni must be so proud. Their university's leader can achieve rote memorization of talking points ripped from some management-advice textbook.

Athletic director Gene Smith kept unctuously thanking reporters who'd spent 11 hours waiting for the conference for their "very good questions." Almost as if he couldn't believe his good fortune to still have a job. This guy can't possibly be grateful enough. I continue to wonder how he got where he is.

And Urban Meyer. What a peach. He came off like the eye-rolling star high school jock who gets caught cheating on a math test and can't believe he's actually being punished.

Meyer mechanically read a written statement with all the passion and contrition of a recorded outgoing message: I'm not here right now. But this is what they're making me say.

And through it all, nobody - nobody - said a word of remorse to Courtney Smith, the abused ex-wife of the assistant whom Meyer finally fired only when he absolutely had to. She wasn't there, of course. But, you know, maybe as a rhetorical token, it might've been nice.

Of course, that's been the defense of Meyer all along: That the suburban cops policing the McMansions out in Columbus' far-northwest suburbs encountered a he-said-she-said wrestling match and didn't find anything worth charging against OSU assistant Zach Smith.

But, see, that wasn't the issue. The issue is that Courtney Smith had multiple times made disturbing allegations of abuse about her philandering husband and then ex-husband, including texts acknowledged by Meyer's wife, Shelley - who responded that she was scared for her. And then Courtney Smith got a restraining order. And that somehow, it all never got past the cabal of Meyer and Gene Smith at Ohio State. And that Meyer lied about what he knew repeatedly at media days. And, oh yeah, Urban also said Shelley never told him any of that stuff.

Something called "Buckeye Nation" got plenty of mea culpas at the conference, though. Meyer apologized to them. So did Gene Smith.

What is that, anyway, Buckeye Nation? Do these overgrown fratboys think they're being paid by a fan club? They work for a major university with entrance requirements now so stringent that a 3.9 high school GPA is a prerequisite and far from an acceptance guarantee. But their regrets are focused on the face-painted corn-belt hordes, the vast majority of whom never took a class there.

But this is where we are. The bus of an entire massive university is being driven not by its academic leaders but by a bunch of guys who'd be selling insurance or pharmaceuticals or pre-owned Hyundais if they hadn't stumbled onto this dream gig.

They just aren't very smart. Most of them know a lot about football and very little about anything else. If you throw an unusual situation at them outside their familiar realm, they have no idea what to do.

And Meyer is the perfect king of the football savants. Faced with answering an uncomfortable question - Did he think he should've been suspended? - he couldn't even finesse it. We know the truth, of course: Hell no, he didn't think he should've been suspended. But the answer required a momentary tap dance he was incapable of pulling off.

Someone with even an ounce of true contrition about not doing more to check out possible spousal abuse by his decade-long immediate subordinate would've offered up a rationalization. Something along the lines of:

"Hey, at the time we make misjudgments, we always think we're doing the right thing. But, upon reflection, I didn't do enough. So, when that happens, your boss has to whack you. It comes with the territory. Not only that, I tried to lie my way around it because the guy was my mentor's grandson. But I was wrong, and I'm being punished for it. Sometimes, getting knocked down a peg is good for you."

Meyer's actual answer: "I trust and support our president."

That was it. Could his message have been any clearer? Meyer knew he had already survived. He was too arrogant to admit any suspension was due him. And that was his little way of saying: I think this entire production is BS and I don't deserve any punishment. Because I am the king here and don't forget it.

That's the thing about guys who start making $7 million a year when their overall worth to society warrants about $70,000: Their growing arrogance begins to serve as the guise of intelligence. It's a deft enough imitation to fool a lot of people.

But whoever's left at Ohio State who knows the difference is in no position of leadership. Urban's driving this bus.