I have written about this before. About the moral cowardice of coaches who dump the pressure of the final moments of a football game on the heads of often the smallest and most vulnerable members of their team.

Kickers. And, in the case of the celebrated Jim Harbaugh, a punter.

Harbaugh today, with 10 seconds to play, had his team punt the ball on fourth-and-2 at midfield. It turned into a 38-yard fumble return for touchdown and sudden victory for Michigan State, 27-23, over Harbaugh’s Michigan.

Ahead of the play, Harbaugh called a timeout. To talk over what he was going to do, giving himself extra time to come up with the wrong decision — which was to punt the ball.

Why was it a wrong decision?

–Because the punter, Blake O’Neill, doesn’t have a life of (American) football behind him. He is from Australia, where he played Aussie Rules Football and he may never have touched an American football before his 20th birthday.

–Because he is a punter. Did we mention that? Punters touch the ball about five times a game. They are not-quite football players who rarely practice with the guys who block and tackle and catch and run.

(A high school football coach I deeply respect said he always tried to have one of his skill players kick and/or punt, because they were used to making split-second decisions — as well as handling the ball. “You don’t want to lose because of your 40th best football player.”)

–Because a punt was not going to take 10 seconds off the clock. Michigan State had a timeout and was going to run a play, even if the punt got off.

Harbaugh was graceless enough (he often is) to let the punter take the blame for snatching defeat from the mouth of victory.

His post-game media session was embarrassing to watch. Because reporters at Ann Arbor never directly asked Harbaugh why he was punting from midfield with 10 seconds left. After a long span of allowing him to talk about “steel in our spines” and blaming officials, he addressed the issue elliptically by saying something like “all we had to do was catch the ball and punt it”.

Yeah. That’s all. With 111,000 people in the stadium. With 11 guys on the line coming after the punter. The punter who fielded a short snap from center, bobbled it and, just like a non-skill player without a decade of history playing American football, didn’t think to just fall on the ball for a 12-yard loss.

But this never should have happened. How can Jim Harbaugh have let a game of this magnitude (well, any magnitude) ride on a snapper and a punt and a punter?

And, remember, Harbaugh and his staff chose to make Blake O’Neill the team’s punter, and coached him, and apparently had the whole of a timeout to talk to him about making sure he covered the football, if something went wrong.

Harbaugh could have had his offense try to pick up two yards on a fourth-down play that would have taken five or so seconds off the clock, even if his team failed to get a first down. (Harbaugh said he didn’t want State to have a chance at a “Hail Mary” pass into the end zone, from around the 50 — when 11 real football players would have been on the field playing defense for Michigan.)

And, meanwhile, thanks a lot coach, for the confidence in your offense picking up those two yards.

So, shocking shock, a punter bobbled a shaky snap. That never happens. And a defender picked it up and took it to the end zone.

Sadly, predictably, Blake O’Neill was the target of ridicule and, some suggest, death threats.

When this was about Harbaugh’s spineless call. He is the man who gets paid $3 million a year to make correct decisions. He failed on this one, and left his Australian punter twisting in the wind. I hate when football coaches do this, and they often do.