Harbaugh Doubles Down; Finebaum Doesn’t Buy It

By Kyle Golik

As Sunday’s bombshell of an advanced draft of the potential Notice of Allegations continues to reverberate around the football world, it hasn’t escaped Los Angeles Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh of what happened at Michigan or at least in his part of him not doing anything wrong.

“Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal. I was raised with that lesson,” Harbaugh said. “I have raised my family on that lesson. I have preached that lesson to the teams I’ve coached. No one’s perfect. If you stumble, you apologize and you make it right. Today, I do not apologize. I did not participate, was not aware nor complicit in those said allegations. So, it’s back to work and attacking with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.”

In a lot of ways, Harbaugh’s tactic is to deny it into existence. I am not saying that Jack and Jackie Harbaugh did not teach young Jim to never to lie, never to cheat, and never to steal. I firmly believe adult Jim is telling the truth in that regard. It is his woeful ignorance I don’t buy whatsoever.

Joining me into the foray of not buying Harbaugh’s innocence or ignorance, depending on how you look at it is ESPN’s Paul Finebaum . On ESPN's get up, he said:

“It’s an Oscar-winning performance…I wanted to label him a pathological liar, as someone who’s delusional. But I can’t do it anymore because I think he’s in many ways is the Jack Nicholson of coaching. He’s a man of all seasons…I’m going to bow at the feet of Jim Harbaugh for pulling off this scam and then acting like he didn’t do anything wrong.”

There has been a history between Finebaum and Harbaugh, not to the degree of hurt feelings Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin still harbors for Finebaum for his termination at Southern California, where the ESPN prognosticator has called for his job due to subpar performances and other questionable tactics. To be fair, Finebaum is spot on with this analysis.

The last time I remember a coach pulling this off, is the same coach Harbaugh got questioned about “what’s his deal” and that was Pete Carroll. Carroll seemingly jumped at the perfect time when the NCAA hammer was coming down due to the improper benefits that were going around the Southern California program. What I remember most of the situation is Carroll’s video statement shortly after the sanctions were levied and how Carroll pretended to be ‘shocked’ by the revelations of it.

Carroll took a sanctimonious position in 2014 when he admitted if the sanctions had been levied sooner, he would have stayed, "Had we known that that was imminent ... I would never have been able to leave under those circumstances," Carroll told the Los Angeles Times . "When I look back now, I would have stayed there to do what we needed to do to resolve the problem."

In a lot of ways, I don’t believe Carroll’s position. The NFL is its own beast and a big business. If a franchise believes you can turn it around, you are worth millions to them. What happens at the NCAA level, unless it is something of a heinous or despicable nature, organization administrators don’t look beyond the results. This is why Carroll and Harbaugh were able to seek refuge in the NFL and be the Bandit in escaping Buford T. Justice and the NCAA’s jaws of justice.

Harbaugh’s constant flirtations with the NFL in recent years was a sign he couldn’t continue to bottle the charade that he pulled at Michigan.

While many athletes worked hard and did the right things in Michigan’s 2023 national championship season, it was plenty of staffers and coaches behind the scenes that weren’t doing the right things.

Regardless of what Harbaugh wants you to believe, to suggest he was unaware of what all the coaches and staffers were doing is crazy. The allegation that his offensive coordinator and successor Sherrone Moore deleted text messages between Moore and Connor Stalions . You look at the behavior and hubris the way Michigan has handled itself during this period, I don’t trust Harbaugh is telling the truth.

Finebaum is right, the scam perpetuated by Harbaugh, and the charade he is pulling now, should get him casted as the central figure in the sequel of the Oceans film franchise with the heist Harbaugh pulled.