It appears that Jim Harbaugh is going to be on the sidelines for the first four games of this upcoming season, including his program’s Big Ten season opener against Rutgers football. And Paul Finebaum can’t make sense of it.
Contrary to reports a week ago that Harbaugh was going to be suspended for four games following an investigation into a recruiting violation, it now appears that no punishment will be forthcoming that will affect the Wolverines head coach this season. It is a stunning turnaround given that it seemed that Harbaugh was heading towards a suspension for the infraction.
The agreement that had been in place seems to now have been called off. So instead of being suspended for the first month of the season, Harbaugh now will be able to coach his team.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, then you are not alone in all of this.
Michigan opens the season with three non-conference games before hosting Rutgers on September 23.
Finebaum, an ESPN analyst, can’t get over the whole debacle. And sadly, while he didn’t use the term debacle, Finebaum can’t make sense of what is going on with Harbaugh and the NCAA.
“It’s really been a disaster on both sides. If you go back, and no one wants to go too far back – Habriagh could have gotten out of this by admitting that he mislead NCAA investigators. He refused. Now, again, maybe he is a great man of principles,” Finebaum said on ESPN over the weekend.
“Most would have wanted to move this way. Now it keeps dragging on. Ultimately, this will get to the NCAA committee
“The only good news for Michigan fans is that he was supposed to miss four games against a bunch of nobodies. This thing could drag on till the end of the season. I don’t think at the end this will affect Michigan very much other than negative headlines.”
Under the original agreement, Harbaugh was allowed to coach practices during the four-week suspension but would not be allowed on the sideline or to coach in games.
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It now appears that he will be on the sidelines for the first four games of the season, including the Big Ten opener against Rutgers.
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