Paul Finebaum won’t be sharing a steak dinner with Jim Harbaugh anytime soon. Michigan fans won’t be rolling out the maize and blue carpet for him outside the Big House, and he’ll be buying his own drinks indefinitely in Ann Arbor.

The longtime SEC Network host hasn’t been one to censor himself when it comes to the now-Los Angeles Chargers head coach. Finebaum was calling Harbaugh a “disingenuous fraud” long before it became fashionable to do so. And while he’s admitted to eating crow on Harbaugh’s coaching chops — conceding he was “probably never more wrong about anybody” when it came to the Wolverines’ on-field success — he’s never wavered on the character assessment.

That stance looks awfully prescient in light of Friday’s NCAA ruling on Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal. The governing body stopped short of a postseason ban but leveled a multimillion-dollar fine equivalent to two years of playoff revenue, along with other penalties for the main actors involved, which include an eight-year show-cause penalty for Connor Stalions and a 10-year show-cause for Harbaugh.

Current Michigan head coach Sherrone Moore was slapped with a one-game suspension for deleting texts with Stalions, though the recovered messages didn’t tie him to the broader scheme.

“What bugs me here is the hypocrisy of the Michigan fanbase,” Finebaum declared on his eponymous show. “They’re easily among the most despicable group of overzealous fans I’ve ever dealt with. And the fact that they tried to act like they have a legitimate national championship — they don’t. The banners won’t come down. The trophies will remain. But everybody knows they cheated like bandits.

“Everybody knows this 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.”

Wow. Paul Finebaum going off on Michigan. pic.twitter.com/id6zDUxqIR

— Jim Comparoni (@JimComparoni) August 16, 2025

That’s Finebaum being Finebaum, but he has a point.

Harbaugh served a three-game suspension in 2023, and Michigan still rolled to a championship. The banners stay up, the trophy will remain in Ann Arbor, and nobody’s making the Wolverines give anything back. The NCAA chose a hefty fine over a postseason ban, which allows Michigan to keep its title while cutting a check.

And that’s exactly what Finebaum predicted when Harbaugh bolted for Los Angeles, which he said was actually a “positive” thing for college football, ahead of the 2024 season.

“He has so many different lanes, and you really just can’t get mad at the guy,” Finebaum said. “You can’t say he ran a program into the ground because they won the National Championship. Yeah, he left a stench behind, but as we’ve said, it’ll get cleaned up with very little penalty. He’s making a fortune with the Chargers. And 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.”

Which brings us back to Finebaum’s reaction on Friday. He said from the start the punishment would be light, and he was right. And that’s conceivably why everyone’s favorite bombastic college football personality won’t stop reminding anyone who will listen that Michigan’s crown comes with an asterisk.