Sherrone Moore’s Michigan Wolverines have been penalized for bad conduct. Their trouble with the Connor Stalions sign-stealing drama has been looming for years. On August 19, the NCAA announced the list of punishments that Moore’s program will face. Even the former head coach Jim Harbaugh is under media scrutiny.

Even though Moore is in the driver’s seat and is going to bear the biggest blows, Harbaugh faced the media where questions flared up on his reaction to the NCAA punishing his former team. While Harbaugh marked himself safe from unnecessary drama, this ‘playing safe’ attitude did not sit well with everyone. Especially this Big Ten Hall of Famer who goes by the name of Dan Dakich.

Dakich was a former Bowling Green State University basketball head coach and an Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer. Dakich, retweeted a post by TheWolevrine.com.  The caption of Dakich’s post read, “Coward always gonna be a coward.” The original post had a clip of Harbaugh’s interview where he was asked about the latest sanctions from the NCAA for Michigan. The ex-head coach was not in the mood to dive into controversy. “Like I said to you last year, I’m not engaging,” Harbaugh said in his postgame news conference after a 23-22 preseason loss to the Los Angeles Rams.

Among the punishments, the Wolverines will forfeit postseason revenue from the upcoming two seasons, which is expected to cost them at least $20 million. We are all aware of Moore’s two-game self-imposed suspension in 2025. But turns out that he will also serve a suspension in one game during the 2026 season. But what are the penalties that Harbaugh will have to bear? 

Harbaugh was given a 10-year show-cause penalty. The reason? This penalty will not take effect until after the four-year show-cause penalty he was given last year in part for violating COVID-19 recruiting regulations. This means for Harbaugh, the gates to college football will remain closed till 2038. While Harbaugh has figured out his job in the NFL, things are going to be tough for Moore.

The Wolverines will now have to pay a monetary penalty worth a $50,000 fine plus 10% of the program’s operating budget. It comes with an additional fine,  “equivalent to the anticipated loss of all postseason competition revenue sharing associated with the 2025-26 and 2026-27 football seasons.” Not just this, another fine equal to 10% of the scholarships awarded in Michigan’s football program for the 2025-26 academic year. This makes up to a total fine worth above $30 million. Meanwhile, Dakich is not the only person that gets a negative reaction from Harbaugh.

Eight years later, smoke still rises between Jim Harbaugh and the ESPN analyst

This is not the first time that Dakich has gone all harsh with his words against Harbaugh. On March 21, this year, the former basketball head coach turned host of the Don’t @ Me podcast, shared a Yahoo! Sports article. The title of the article read, “Ex-Ravens and Michigan assistant charged with accessing thousands of college athletes’ ‘intimate digital photographs and videos’.” Dakich then tweeted it with the caption, “Harbaugh’s regime ⁦@ UM⁩ is the most corrupt, most dishonest, most despicable in college football history.”   

Like Dakich, Harbaugh has a tart relationship with ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum as well. For that, we need to travel 8 years back to 2017. Back then, Harbaugh went a bit too far with his coaching roster. He hired the father of the No. 1 quarterback recruit, Michael Johnson Jr., on Michigan’s staff. That raised an alarm for violation of the NCAA Bylaws. Finebaum could no longer keep calm and tweeted coming up with a sharp comment on Harbaugh. He wrote, “It may not be illegal by NCAA standards and bylaws as of this moment, but to me, it’s cheating.” Harbaugh did not let it pass through.

Deliberately taking a wrong name, Harbaugh tweeted, “Pete Finebaum, the unabashed SEC water carrier, really needs to get his facts straight. #AlternativeFacts.” Eight years later turns out that the Jim Harbaugh-Paul Finebaum scuffle is again likely to pick up momentum. “The trophies will remain. But everybody knows they cheated like bandits. Everybody knows that this thing stinks to high heaven. Everybody knows Jim Harbaugh was a total fraud in everything he said. But it won’t matter because he got away with it. And the most important thing he did, he won,” the ESPN analyst breathed fire. So, while Harbaugh builds his NFL chapter, his past continues to follow him like a shadow.