T
he NFL season has not started and already, the Los Angeles Chargers are under a microscope. On Aug. 15, the NCAA concluded its investigation into the Michigan Football sign stealing scandal from 2023, handing down multiple sanctions to the staff members involved. Among the people punished was Chargers head coach, Jim Harbaugh, receiving a 10-year show cause penalty.
Now, nearly a week after Harbaugh received his punishment, others are speaking out about the situation. Coaching in the NFL, the show cause does not affect Harbaugh as long as he keeps his job with the Chargers. But legendary college coach, Urban Meyer, feels that the NFL should issue its own punishment for Harbaugh and not let him get away with his college misconduct.
Meyer’s Comments
Speaking on the podcast that he co-hosts with Mark Ingram II and Rob Stone, Triple Option Podcast, Meyer commented that Harbaugh should have to serve some sort of punishment from the NFL, alluding to former Ohio State coach, Jim Tressel, and his scandal from 2011. He went a step further to say that Michigan’s national championship should have an asterisk by it.
“They’ll be an asterisk there,” Meyer said on the podcast. “There’s an elephant in the room here, boys, though, that no one’s talking about. When Jim Tressel was fired at Ohio State and he was given a suspension, Roger Goodell, commissioner of National Football League, came out and said that we’re going to honor that suspension. And you remember, he went to the Indianapolis Colts to work in the replay room or something. The Colts, because of the respect they had for the NCAA and the suspension, you realize they suspended Jim Tressel so he was unable to perform his duties for the first six games of the year for the Indianapolis Colts.”
Tressel resigned from his job as Ohio State’s coach right before the start of the 2011 season because it was revealed that a handful of his players were receiving impermissible benefits from the owner of a tattoo parlor. And even though he took an NFL job for the 2011 season, he was still forced to serve a punishment. Ohio State lost nine scholarships and could not play in any bowl or championship games during Meyer’s first season in charge of the program.
A Potential Harbaugh Extension
The Michigan scandal was a severe one, but suspending Harbaugh could also mean suspending multiple other coaches on his Chargers staff. Several of Harbaugh’s former assistants at Michigan followed him to the Chargers including defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, defensive line coach Mike Elston, defensive backs coach Steve Clinkscale and director of player performance, Ben Herbert. In that scenario, the NFL would have to launch its own investigation to figure out the extent of each of their involvement in the scandal.
If he is fired from the Chargers, Harbaugh cannot go back to college football. With that being the case, the NFL could view that as punishment enough and let him continue his job with the Bolts, where he will look to guide the team on a deeper playoff run and win the franchise’s ever Super Bowl title.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Legendary College Coach Says NFL Should Suspend Jim Harbaugh appeared first on Heavy Sports.