Tennessee Vols: Jon Gruden’s Personality Makes Jump To Tennessee Plausible

Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden directs the North team at the 2007 Under Armour Senior Bowl in Mobile Jan. 27. (Photo by A. Messerschmidt/Getty Images)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden directs the North team at the 2007 Under Armour Senior Bowl in Mobile Jan. 27. (Photo by A. Messerschmidt/Getty Images) /
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The Tennessee Vols are reportedly targeting Jon Gruden to be their next head coach if/when they fire Butch Jones.

For the last decade, Jon Gruden has a made a habit of flirting with the Tennessee Vols anytime UT has a need for a head coach.

But Gruden turning down blue blood college football programs is a tradition that dates back to at least 2001.

In a 2002 interview with Sports Illustrated, Gruden’s father pointed out that his son turned down both Ohio State and Notre Dame in back to back years.

"“I don’t know many guys who had a chance to coach Ohio State and Notre Dame back-to-back, and turned them down” — Jim Gruden"

Ohio State ended up hiring Jim Tressel, while Notre Dame hired Tyrone Willingham (at least it worked out for Ohio State).

Of course it shouldn’t be a surprise that Gruden turned down both of those programs in the early 2000’s. At the time, Gruden was the hottest thing in the NFL, reviving the Oakland Raiders’ franchise, before leading Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl win.

There was obviously no way Gruden was going to leave the NFL in 2001 or 2002 to coach at the collegiate level. But you can’t blame Notre Dame and Ohio State for making those calls.

Another interesting comment from that 2002 Sports Illustrated story was an anecdote about Gruden feeling “stupid” as a youngster, which pushed him to work harder. It was an assessment (the working hard part) that his father agreed with.

"But ever since he got into coaching, in 1986, he has been living a grunt’s schedule–beginning each day at 3:17 a.m., often ending it near midnight–because when he was a teenager a lot of people thought he was stupid, and he has never gotten over it. Jon once told his father that he works so hard because he’s not as smart as other NFL coaches. “And I think he’s right,” says Jim, a San Francisco 49ers scout."

If you’ve heard Gruden rattle off play calls, you know he’s anything but “stupid”. I can’t even imagine how someone would think that about him. Perhaps he doesn’t have the knowledge of a Mike Leach beyond football, but the guy is obviously intelligent. It’s still quite interesting how his perception of how others viewed him drove him to work even harder as a coach.

And that started when he was a graduate assistant at Tennessee.

"“I’ve never had a graduate coach who hit it like he did. He’d be there when everybody else got there. And he’d be there after everybody else left.” — Johnny Majors"

A lot has been made of the “cush job” that Jon Gruden has at ESPN. He gets paid $6.5 million a year to call one game a week. Most folks think he’d be crazy to leave that to get back into coaching.

In the case of most people, they’d be correct. But Jon Gruden isn’t most people.

I honestly believe that Gruden misses the everyday grind of coaching. Football is who he is. He’s said before that he’s a shallow person. His life is basically his family and football. There is nothing else.

"“I’m a real shallow guy,” he says without a hint of embarrassment. “It’s not like I’ve got a three handicap, or I can play the guitar, or I can tell you anything about the stock market. It’s not like you and I could have a conversation about anything else. I’ve got this job, I’ve got my three boys and my wife, my family. That’s it. I like to fish a little. But there’s not a lot of me. — Jon Gruden, 2002"

Calling Monday Night Football games might temporarily satisfy Gruden’s craving to be around football, but I don’t think it’s nearly as fulfilling for him as coaching.

I’m not saying Gruden will take the Tennessee job if/when Butch Jones is fired, but I do think a return to coaching is in the near future for him.

Tennessee would make a lot of sense, though. When you look back on Gruden’s career as a NFL head coach, the first thing that comes to mind is his Super Bowl win in 2002. You don’t tend to think about how the Bucs fired him after several lackluster seasons. If he returned to the NFL, and ended up with some 8-8 years and maybe an 11 win season here and there, he’d be just another average NFL coach that happened to win a Super Bowl (which folks will always qualify with “well he had Tony Dungy’s players”).

But if Gruden goes to college, he has the opportunity to become a legend like Nick Saban. He would also have the opportunity to join Pete Carroll, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer as the only coaches to win a Super Bowl and a NCAA national championship.

There are plenty of reasons for Gruden to not coach Tennessee, but there are a lot of interesting reasons why he should come to Knoxville and restore the Vols football program to glory.

Next: Butch Jones Trying To Hang On To Job

Maybe 2017 is the year Gruden finally puts the pen to paper and makes his triumphant return to Rocky Top.