Joe Scarborough Calls Out Jim Harbaugh’s Cheating Scandal: What they Did Was ‘Deplorable’

Joe Scarborough believes Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh tarnished his team’s national championship after being embroiled in a cheating scandal.

The top-ranked Wolverines secured their first national championship since 1997 on Monday, beating second-ranked Washington 34-13. Making the win especially sweet for Harbaugh was the fact that Michigan is his alma mater.

For some, however, the championship will have an asterisk next to it in the history books. To start the season, Harbaugh was suspended for three games due to recruiting violations. Then, he was suspended for the last three games of the regular season after the team was accused of stealing the play signs of their opponents over the last few years.

Because of that, Scarborough wasn’t sure how to feel about the team’s victory.

“Were I a Michigan fan, I’d want to focus on the kids,” he said on Tuesday’s episode of Morning Joe. “And I do want to focus on what a great team they are, and I really do the morning after. I hate to bring this up, but I think we need to bring it up. If there weren’t so many cutaway shots to Harbaugh, I could focus on the kids on the field; but this is a guy that was suspended twice and the cheating scandal was terrible. And not only was it terrible, he lied about it.”

Scarborough — who was joined by ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum — even floated the idea of the NCAA vacating games.

“If you talk to other Big Ten coaches, if you talk to other Big Ten officials,” Scarborough said, “they thought Michigan should’ve been banned from bowl games or they should’ve had wins taken away from them. What they did was pretty deplorable, and then they got caught lying about it.”

Watch above via MSNBC

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