Former Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer salutes the fans chanting his name during the College Football Playoff quarterfinal against the Oregon Ducks at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif. on Jan. 1, 2025. Ohio State won 41-21.

Count Urban Meyer among those who thinks the NFL should punish Jim Harbaugh following his tenure at Michigan football.

The former Ohio State football coach said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell should hand down a suspension to Harbaugh — now coach of the NFL's Los Angeles Chargers — due to the penalties arising from the Connor Stalions sign-stealing scandal.

Meyer, who coached Ohio State from 2012 through partway through the 2018 season, referenced former Buckeyes coach Jim Tressel as a precedent during an appearance on The Triple Option podcast on Wednesday, Aug. 20.

"There's an elephant in the room here that no one's talking about," Meyer said. "When 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 suspension.

"[Tressel] went to the Indianapolis Colts to work in the replay room. The Colts, because of the respect they had for the NCAA and the suspension, suspended Jim Tressel, so he was unable to perform his duties for the first six games of the year."

Tressel resigned from Ohio State in 2011 after an NCAA investigation found OSU players received improper benefits, including quarterback Terrelle Pryor. Tressel then went to work for the Indianapolis Colts as a game-day advisor but, upon his suggestion to the Colts' leadership, did not begin his tenure with the team until the seventh game of the season, honoring the suspension from the NCAA.

While Goodell did not hand down Tressel's suspension, he did support it.

"I support that decision. I think that's a wise one," Goodell said at the time. "I think it was clear that if they didn't take an appropriate action, I would have taken appropriate action."

However, Meyer does not believe a suspension for Harbaugh is coming.

"Any chance that Roger Goodell and the NFL, of course not. I don't know why," Meyer said.

Harbaugh was suspended for one year and given a four-year show-cause order by the NCAA in 2024 after he was found to have demonstrated both “unethical conduct” and a failure to promote “an atmosphere of compliance." The show-cause order is effective from Aug. 7, 2024 through Aug. 6, 2028, and he would face a one-year suspension if he decided to leave the NFL for another college job in that window.

Harbaugh has since received an additional 10-year show cause, which will take effect on Aug. 7, 2028.

Harbaugh led the Wolverines to the 2023 College Football Playoff championship before leaving to coach the Chargers. Los Angeles went 11-6 in the first season under Harbaugh, losing in the AFC wild card game to the Houston Texans.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Urban Meyer says NFL should suspend Jim Harbaugh for NCAA violations at Michigan

Reporting by Ehsan Kassim, USA TODAY NETWORK / USA TODAY

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