Earlier this week, Urban Meyer called for the NFL to somehow honor the NCAA’s punishment of Jim Harbaugh. With that, Paul Finebaum couldn’t believe how much he finally agreed with the former head coach.

Finebaum reacted to Meyer’s take on a punishment for Harbaugh in an appearance on ‘First Take’ on Friday. He admitted that, to his own surprise, he was in full agreement with Meyer for the first time in his life.

“That is the first time in my entire life I’ve ever agreed with anything Urban Meyer has said. He is 100% correct,” said Finebaum. “I mean, I’m in shock that I actually like something that Urban is thinking about, but he’s right.”

This comes after this week’s episode of ‘The Triple Option’ where Meyer wondered why the NFL couldn’t levy a punishment against Harbaugh following the ruling of the sign-stealing scandal last week by the NCAA. He noted the 2011 suspension of Jim Tressel, by the Indianapolis Colts when he was in the NFL at that time as an analyst, following his own violations at the end of his tenure at Ohio State in 2010, eventually leading to Meyer’s own tenure in Columbus starting in 2012. So, with that in mind, Meyer questioned why the National Football League couldn’t do the same thing now with Harbaugh, the head coach of the Chargers who, as of that outcome last week, is technically on a fourteen-year show-cause in college football after receiving a ten-year show-cause back on Friday.

“There’s an elephant in the room here, boys, though, that no one’s talking about,” Meyer said. “When Jim Tressel was fired by Ohio State and he was given a suspension, Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the National Football League, came out and said that we’re going to honor that violation, that we’re going to honor that suspension. And, you remember. (Tressel) 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, suspended Jim Tressel. So he was unable to perform his duties for the first six games of the year for the Indianapolis Colts.”

“I think we all know the answer. Any chance Roger Goodell and the NFL (do the same thing)? Of course not, and I don’t know why,” Meyer said.

The result of the sign-stealing saga last week was mostly several million dollars’ worth of significant fines against the football program at Michigan. Sherrone Moore, the Wolverines’ current head coach who took Harbaugh’s place, was then suspended an additional game for this season on top of the self-imposed two he’ll serve this season. Harbaugh (10 years), Connor Stalions (8 years), and Denard Robinson (3 years) also received show-causes, but with the opinion being that only matters so much to someone Harbaugh as he’s back for a second stint in the NFL and unlikely to ever return to the NCAA anyways. The maize & blue have also since appealed all of this as well.

With that bit of history from Meyer, it’d be of note, even with how unlikely it may be, in wondering if the NFL would or could follow through on a follow-up punishment to someone like Harbaugh. If they did, though, Finebaum sounds like he’d be all for it based on his latest comments this morning.

Finebaum claims Jim Harbaugh ‘stole a national championship’

Paul Finebaum just elevated his longstanding feud with Jim Harbaugh to new levels during ‘First Take’ on Friday. The SEC Network host flatly declared that Michigan’s former head coach “stole a national championship” coming after the NCAA levied significant penalties stemming from its two-year investigation into the sign-stealing scheme, comparing his return to the NFL as a “highway robbery”.

“What Jim Harbaugh has done is highway robbery. He stole a national championship. It’s simple as that. He used Connor Stalions and then he lied and obfuscated, he misled. It’s truly beyond hypocrisy,” Finebaum said. :This is the same guy that shot arrows at everybody a couple of years earlier. He accused Nick Saban of cheating, he accused Kirby Smart. He just blanketly accused everyone, and now look at him holding up a banner. And as soon as he gets the (national championship) bonus, he hightails it out of town with no penalty. Now, do I expect anyone at the Chargers or the NFL offices to do anything? Of course not. But it would be nice if somebody acknowledged it. It’d be nice if Harbaugh even addressed the situation, which of course he has not and will not.”

“Listen, this whole thing stinks, and I realize nothing is going to happen, because that’s the world we live in. But…you act like Michigan has suffered here. They haven’t suffered, they wrote a check. But, so what? This is a very wealthy university and, if you don’t believe me, just ask any Michigan graduate anywhere in the country. They’ll tell you how great they are,” Finebaum continued. “And this is not a school that wins a lot of national championships either. They’ve won 2 ½ national championships in 70 years. I think Alabama won that many just walking down the street yesterday.”

“The point is, no, they really didn’t steal it. They didn’t go into a bank and steal the national championship. But it feels like they did something tawdry,” said Finebaum. “They did something against a bunch of no-name schools that they didn’t need to do. But that’s who Jim Harbaugh is.”