Bianchi: UF's new presidential pick, Santa Ono, signed off on football cheating scandal at Michigan

Yahoo

10-05-2025

If there is anybody who should be thrilled about Santa Ono becoming the University of Florida's unanimous choice as the new school president, it is Florida football coach Billy Napier.
As long as Napier wins at a high level — either by hook or by crook — Ono will have his back.
If we've learned anything about Ono from his tenure as the president of the University of Michigan, it is that he loves a winning football team.
At all costs.
When the University of Florida announced a few days ago that Ono was the sole finalist to replace Ben Sasse as the next president, the news rippled far beyond Gainesville.
Ono, who has served as president of the University of Michigan since 2022, is a respected academic leader with a reputation for energy, charisma and a strong belief in the power of higher education.
His academic credentials are impeccable:
World-renowned researcher. Ph.D. in experimental medicine from McGill University and a B.A. in biological sciences from the University of Chicago. Been on the faculty at Harvard and Johns Hopkins. Been elected to National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, National Academy of Inventors, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and the Royal Society of Chemistry.
However, not listed on his long list of scholarly achievements is his most notable accomplishment at the University of Michigan:
Provost Emeritus of Plausible Deniability during the Wolverines' march to the national championship two seasons ago.
Ono's defining moment at Michigan didn't take place in a lab or a lecture hall, it came amid the most high-profile college football scandal in a decade — the infamous sign-stealing operation that implicated Jim Harbaugh and his staff in a sophisticated and systematic scheme to illegally gather opponents' play signals.
As the Wolverines marched toward their first national title in 26 years, Ono protected Harbaugh even more diligently than Michigan's offensive line protected quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Ono stood resolutely behind Harbaugh, talking about how much he 'trusted' the head coach and how Harbaugh was — and I swear I'm not making this up — 'a man of honor.'
Puh-leeze.
If Harbaugh is a man of honor, then Urban Meyer was unfairly overlooked as a candidate to become the new pope.
If Harbaugh is such a man of integrity, then why was he suspended for half of the regular season (six games) during the 2023 championship run for two different breaches of NCAA rules?
Why did Michigan itself levy a three-game suspension of Harbaugh as a good-faith effort to penalize the coach for alleged recruiting violations in 2020 in which the NCAA says Harbaugh lied to its investigators?
Why did Michigan agree to the Big Ten's additional three-game suspension of Harbaugh at the end of the season for the comprehensive sign-stealing scheme orchestrated by Harbaugh staff member Connor Stalions? And why was Stalions fired only after the blatant cheating allegations became public?
And why did Michigan just self-impose a two-game suspension on current head coach Sherrone Moore — Harbaugh's former offensive coordinator — for trying to delete text messages from Stalions when the allegations first became public?
Why?
Because Ono and Michigan's leaders — rather than demand accountability — effectively became Harbaugh's human shield. They did whatever they could to keep the national championship train on the track, including threatening legal action against their own conference — the Big Ten — when it suspended Harbaugh for the final three games of the 2023 regular season. It is believed that the only reason Michigan backed down from its legal threat is because the Big Ten agreed to close down its investigation and no longer pursue further penalties (including banning the Wolverines from representing the conference in the College Football Playoff).
In other words, Ono and fellow pom-pom waving panderers were less interested in transparency than in protecting the football program's march toward a national championship. It was a perfect case study in how a university president traded an institution's integrity for a trophy.
I wrote it at the time and I will reiterate it now:
'We used to think of the University of Michigan as a bastion of academic excellence, as one of the nation's premier research universities and arguably the most esteemed public university in America. Now when we think of Michigan, we think of just another sewer-dwelling, win-at-all-cost football factory that will do anything and everything in its power to win a national championship. The Wolverines, in their race to get to the top of the college football rankings, actually have sunk to the bottom of the cesspool known as college athletics.'
In other words, Ono is a perfect fit in the SEC. His brand of presidential leadership — while troublesome to many — might just be music to the ears of Gator Nation, which is desperate to get its football program back on the national radar. In a hypercompetitive era of NIL deals, transfer portals and relentless pressure to win, Florida is getting a president who already has shown he won't blink when coaches push the boundaries.
In fact, a case could be made that Ono's move to Gainesville might just be the UF football program's most valuable acquisition since the recruitment of DJ Lagway. The Gators now have a president who's already proven he's willing to look the other way so long as the wins keep coming.
Santa Ono may have a Ph.D. in experimental medicine, but it seems his real specialty is immunology — especially when it comes to cheating football programs that win national championships.
Email me at [e-mail]. Hit me up on X (formerly Twitter) @BianchiWrites and listen to my Open Mike radio show every weekday from 6 to 9:30 a.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen