Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh looks on before running onto the field for a game against Indiana at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on Saturday, Oct. 14, 2023.

Jim Harbaugh's NCAA coaching career is pretty much over -- at least until 2038.

That's how long he'll be under show-cause penalties thanks to NCAA investigations into improprieties along the Michigan Wolverines' sideline. Harbaugh spent nine season rebuilding his alma mater into a powerhouse. He left to return to the NFL after winning a national championship in 2023 -- right as a handful of scandals began crash around his program.

Harbaugh was already under a four-year NCAA show-cause order and was suspended from the game for a full year after a previous investigation showed he had improper contact with recruits in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. A 10-year sentence handed down Friday will run consecutively with that penalty. When his first show-cause order runs out Aug. 7, 2028, his new countdown clock kicks in.

What is an NCAA show-cause penalty?

A show-cause penalty is used by the NCAA in cases involving serious rule violations and effectively pin a coach to his or her infractions for a certain amount of time. These orders include specific punishments that follow a coach across any job he or she may be interested in taking in the future. In Harbaugh's case, the NCAA ruling "restrict[s] him from all athletically related activities during the show-cause period." That effectively bans him from coaching in the college ranks for the next 13 years.

It doesn't necessarily mean teams can't hire him, but he'll be beholden to the NCAA restrictions throughout his tenure. An interested team could plead its case to why a coach should be freed from his sanctions to take a new job -- showing cause as to why this new program shouldn't be penalized for hiring someone who has a checkered past. They'd have to lay out their argument to an NCAA panel and report back to that panel every six months to update it on the coach in question's progress.

The NCAA cannot fire coaches. They can make them incredibly difficult to employ and make almost every other candidate in a job search more appealing. That's the show-cause penalty in a nutshell.

This article originally appeared on For The Win: What is a 'show cause' penalty in the Michigan football punishment?

Reporting by Christian D'Andrea, For The Win / For The Win

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