COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer was permitted to meet with the team and staff last Thursday before officially receiving his suspension letter from the university.

OSU's student newspaper, The Lantern, first reported Meyer's meeting with the team. A university spokesperson confirmed to cleveland.com that Meyer was in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center for roughly 45 minutes last Thursday to meet with the team and hold "brief, limited conversations with the coaching staff ... about leadership and transition."

Meyer was on paid administrative leave from Aug. 1-22 during the university's investigation into how he and athletic director Gene Smith handled domestic abuse allegations against former assistant coach Zach Smith, and how both generally handled Zach Smith's job performance and personal behavior for the six years he was on staff.

The university suspended Meyer through Sept. 2 and for the first three games of the season. Gene Smith was suspended for three weeks.

Meyer's visit with the team last week, and any limited interaction with players and staff between last Wednesday and Sunday, did not violate his suspension because they would have occurred before Meyer received the terms of his suspension on Aug. 26.

"Those meetings are kind of private with out team, and I think that's probably a good question for when Coach gets back next week," acting head coach Ryan Day said Tuesday. "I will tell you the guys were happy to see him. Shoot I was happy to see him because it's seemed like a long time, you're used to seeing each other every day. Hadn't seen him in a few weeks, so that was good.

"There were a lot of hugs. I know Coach was happy to see the guys. As you can imagine he was giving them an update on what was going on, and kind of explaining some of the situation and talked about moving forward. We try to keep most of those meetings between us, but that was the gist of it."

An Aug. 27 email obtained by cleveland.com to Meyer from Susan Basso, Ohio State's senior vice president of the Office of Human Resources, confirms that Meyer was permitted "one opportunity to meet with the football student-athletes and coaching staff in order to apologize to the team." Gene Smith was also present in that meeting.

A

obtained by cleveland.com states that, through Sept. 2., Meyer "should not attend any practices, meetings, other official events, or otherwise appear in any official capacity; have any communications with staff, student-athletes, recruits, or others; or otherwise conduct any business related to your role for this time period."

Meyer is allowed to resume normal head coach duties on Sept. 3, though he'll also miss the games against Rutgers on Sept. 8 and TCU on Sept. 15. He cannot perform any of the tasks listed above within a 24-hour period around the games for which he is suspended. Meyer is also not allowed at any pre-game activities, or the games themselves.

The suspension letter sent to Meyer was dated Aug. 26.