Here we are, strolling down the road of accountability, and as fate would have it, hypocrisy comes slithering by.
Michigan and Sherrone Moore. Florida and Santa Ono.
I know this is going to shock you (that’s sarcasm), but they’re all connected in a little thing called win at all cost.
Follow along and connect the sordid dots, everyone. A microcosm of the chaotic, unlawful state of college football.
Ready? Let’s do this.
First up, we have Moore, Michigan’s second-year coach who is on the verge of serving his second suspension from the NCAA for cheating — this time, for his role in the Connor Stalions advanced scouting scheme during the 2023 season.
You remember 2023? Michigan’s national championship season, the Wolverines forging their way through an unbeaten season of big wins and … NCAA violations.
Cheating, to be specific.
Caught and exposed in the middle of the 2023 season, mere weeks after Michigan – with the NCAA sheriff bearing down – self-imposed a three-game suspension of coach Jim Harbaugh and a one-game suspension of Moore (Harbaugh’s offensive coordinator) for rules violations during the pandemic season of 2020.
I swear I’m not making this up.
But instead of taking the high road in 2023 and realizing the enormity of a second NCAA investigation of the football program in less than four years, Michigan doubled down.
Hot team, championship run. Nothing is stopping this train.
This is where Ono, Michigan’s dynamic, sports-friendly president, enters the chat. Instead of suspending Harbaugh for the remainder of the season after Stalions’ scheme was uncovered, Ono led the university – I can’t believe I’m writing this – in an unprecedented public fight with the NCAA and Big Ten.
A fight so blatantly obnoxious, the Big Ten couldn’t back down — for fear of a mutiny among its members. A fight so ludicrous in its lack of merit, new Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti (not even a year on the job) had to do what Michigan wouldn’t do and what the NCAA takes forever to do.
He suspended Harbaugh for three games, two of which were critical November rivalries against Penn State and Ohio State. But Michigan kept winning (under Moore as the interim coach), and eventually rolled to a national championship — because, of course, two-time defending national champion Georgia somehow fell out of the College Football Playoff poll after losing by three points in a championship game (but that’s another story for another time).
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After the season, Harbaugh left for the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, and days later, Ono hired Moore – a then two-time NCAA cheater – to lead the storied program that holds itself higher than all others because We’re Michigan, And You’re Not.
Now the bill is coming due, and Michigan has decided to avoid fighting this time around — because, you know, no national title on the line. Now the university will self-impose a two-game suspension on Moore for his part in Stalions’ scheme.
And by part, I mean reportedly deleting 52 text messages between he and Stalions the day the scheme was exposed. On that alone, Moore shouldn’t have been hired by Ono.
But this is the same president who saw the overwhelming evidence in the Stalions scheme, and didn’t suspend Harbaugh. Who knew that the megalomaniacal Harbaugh would never let anything infect his program without his knowledge, and backed him, anyway.
Who knew that in 2020, Harbaugh was on a Big Ten coaches conference call and accused Ohio State of illegal contact when the league had shut down football operations. The very allegation the NCAA later slapped on Michigan, and then proved — despite Harbaugh refusing to cooperate with NCAA investigators.
Those allegations led Michigan to self-impose the first three-game suspension of Harbaugh in 2023 (he was suspended for a total of six games), and Moore and another assistant coach for one game. Knowing all of this, Ono decided to later hire Moore as head coach of holier than thou Michigan.
A year later, the school is self-imposing a two-game suspension on Moore for part in the Stalions scheme.
Now you may be wondering where Florida fits in with all of this Michigan madness. Well, we’re just getting started.
So after Ono’s unique handling of Harbaugh and Moore, and of the 2023 championship season, he moved out of the spotlight of sorts when Michigan’s football team did, too, in 2024. But just last weekend, the search committee for a new president at Florida came up with one — and only one — finalist for the job.
Santa Ono.
The same Florida that hasn’t won a conference championship in football since 2008, and hasn’t played in the BCS national championship game or the CFP since that 2008 national championship season. Sound familiar, diehard Michigan fans?
The same Florida that has gone all-in with embattled coach Billy Napier, whose struggles on the field have overshadowed a significant issue off it: Napier is named in a multimillion dollar breach of contract NIL lawsuit by former signee Jaden Rashada.
Attorneys for Napier and two others named in the suit asked last summer that the suit be thrown out, and the presiding judge denied the motion and said the case would continue ― possibly into this fall. The very time when Florida, if quarterback DJ Lagway remains healthy, could be making a surprising run for the College Football Playoff.
It’s not that difficult to connect the irony dots here.
If Ono can navigate the NCAA and Big Ten, and steer the Big Blue ship home to its first national title since 1997, surely he can help the Gators return to the elite for the first time in 17 years. Or at least lead them from nearly two lost decades of football.
And by lead, I mean win at all cost.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Spots Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
