Paul Finebaum: Watching Jim Harbaugh makes me sick

Jim Harbaugh is entering his 12^th season as a college football head coach and seventh with the Michigan Wolverines. Despite 78 wins and seven bowl appearances over the course of his head coaching career, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum is not a fan of Harbaugh.

Finebaum: Harbaugh is a complete fraud

Harbaugh began his head coaching career at San Diego, where he compiled a 29-6 record. The strength of that showing led to Harbaugh’s hire at Stanford, where he led the Cardinal to two bowl appearances in 2009 and 2010. At Michigan, Harbaugh led the Wolverines to five consecutive bowl appearances to begin his tenure. Michigan only won one of those bowl games, though, and have not won a bowl game since 2015. Because of his lack of true success, Finebaum is not a fan of Harbaugh.

“I don’t know if you can come up with a vomit emoji very quickly in the spur of the moment, but he makes me sick because he shouldn’t be coaching,” Finebaum said when asked to describe Harbaugh. “Yeah, this guy should have been fired last year. If we do our job as poorly as Jim Harbaugh has done his, we’re gone/ It’s not even a debate, it’s not even, ‘Hey, would you come into my office and let’s have a conversation.’ It’s they throw you out in the parking lot.

“But somehow, some way, this guy, who I think is a complete fraud, is a major head coach. He’s making six or seven or eight million dollars a year although I think they cut his salary last year. He’s still there. He can’t beat his rival. He really quite frankly can’t beat even the middle of the pack in the Big Ten.”

After a poor 2020 season, Michigan reworked Harbaugh’s contract

Michigan came into last season ranked 16^th in the AP preseason top 25 poll. They finished the season at 2-4 despite the lowest strength of schedule of Harbaugh’s head coaching career.

After leaving the NFL to become Michigan’s head coach, Harbaugh signed a seven-year deal worth around $7 million per season, according to Larry Lage of AP News. Harbaugh had one year on that deal following the end of last season, but the deal was reworked in the offseason. Now, Harbaugh is owed $4 million this season, with $1 million bonuses for winning the Big Ten or national championship.

Harbaugh is now under contract through the 2025 season. Michigan can buy him out for $4 million after this year, with that number dropping at the conclusion of each future season.

Michigan was not ranked in the preseason AP Top 25 poll.