ESPN’s Paul Finebaum took his latest shot at Jim Harbaugh in light of the Michigan penalties finally coming down. Now that the sign stealing scandal investigation has concluded, Harbaugh received a 10-year show cause, among other penalties for the school. But what bugs Finebaum is that it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things […]
ESPN’s Paul Finebaum took his latest shot at Jim Harbaugh in light of the Michigan penalties finally coming down. Now that the sign stealing scandal investigation has concluded, Harbaugh received a 10-year show cause, among other penalties for the school.
But what bugs Finebaum is that it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things for Harbaugh, or even Michigan for that matter. Harbaugh is set to begin Year 2 with the Los Angeles Chargers fresh off an AFC playoff berth.
Not that he was going to return to college football, but he certainly won’t now. In the end, Finebaum called Harbaugh out for hypocrisy and the NCAA for lack of harsher penalties.
“What really bothers me is that about eight or nine years ago, Jim called Kirby Smart a cheater, he called Nick Saban a cheater, he went after a bunch of schools in the south, and now look at him,” Finebaum said on First Take. “And think about this, this is 2025. If you turn the clock back 25 years when the NCAA had some teeth and was a respected organization, as opposed to a laughing stock, there is a reasonably good chance … that this program would have been shut down. I’m talking death penalty. It’s only happened one time, to SMU in the 80s.
“I think they’re this close. And what does Harbaugh do? He hightails it out of town and makes 15 or $20 million a year. Good for him. He got out of there. (The show cause) doesn’t matter, because he’s not ever coming back to college football.”
Harbaugh is now unofficially on a 14-year-long show-cause from the NCAA. That’s by adding this 10-year show-cause onto the one he’s currently serving with a four-year show-cause as punishment for recruiting violations, starting just over a year ago in August of 2024.
Harbaugh left his alma mater last offseason with a record of 89-25 overall, including three wins in the Big Ten Championship and three appearances in the College Football Playoff, with the Wolverines over nine seasons from 2015 to 2023, with that final one ending in that national championship for the maize & blue.
This then brings about the end of the storyline and saga involving Connor Stalions, the former staffer who apparently led the sign-stealing system that went on in Ann Arbor. That included buying tickets to key games and either he or associates would attend, with the intention to steal opposing teams’ signs on the sidelines from 2021-2023.
Category: Football
