Tennessee Football: Jon Gruden Using The Vols To Land NFL Job?

Jon Gruden isn’t doing much to dispel the rumors that he’ll be the next Tennessee football coach.

Rumors have run wild this week that Jon Gruden is talking to folks to gauge their interest in joining him in Knoxville in the event that he becomes the next Tennessee football coach.

Several of those rumors have been confirmed by reputable folks.

While we don’t know exactly what Gruden has said to potential assistant coaches, we do know he’s reached out.

But that didn’t stop Gruden from telling Mike and Mike on Wednesday morning that he hasn’t talked to anyone.

For what it’s worth, it was a sweeping statement by Gruden. He didn’t directly address Tennessee, despite Mike Golic mentioning the Volunteers.

Here are his full comments.

Sounds the typical non-denial from a potential coach, something we see a lot of across college football this time of year.

With all the rumors and reports flying around, it definitely sounds like Gruden has some interest in the job.

But that interest might be so he can leverage Tennessee’s offer into an offer from an NFL team.

I know that’s not what  fans want to hear (and I think it would be a pretty awful thing for Gruden to do), but it could be what’s happening.

Here’s a report from Landry Football that suggests there actually hasn’t been much interest from NFL teams in Gruden:

"However, I spoke with members of the Gruden camp and other coaching friends that know Jon better than I do. All believe that Jon wants badly to get back to coaching —-in the NFL. He prefers the NFL game and style but has not had a interest coming his way in the league for some time.The rumors about a return to the Buccaneers comes from the Gruden camp, not from the Buccaneers. Would the Glazers be willing to bring back Gruden to Tampa? Perhaps. But the Glazer boys are close to the vest types who would never express any interest until they were ready to move on an offer.By having his name constantly out in the public, it only serves as a public relations mechanism for Gruden to keep his name fresh and on the top of every NFL owner’s mind. If he is perceived to be “interested” in the Tennessee job, then it only encourages any interested NFL parties to check into his NFL interest."

Landry also suggested that Tennessee isn’t really all that interested in Gruden.

So here’s what I can surmise from all of this:

Gruden wants to coach, and he’d prefer to coach in the NFL.

NFL teams, however, aren’t in awe of his name and they really aren’t that interested in him.

For that reason, Gruden’s camp continues to float his name out there hoping it will entice a team to make an offer to him. He knows Tennessee wants him, and perhaps he will end up feeling that’s the only way he can get back into coaching, but he’s using those rumors to see if NFL teams will raise their eyebrows when his name is mentioned.

That means it’s possible that Gruden comes to Tennessee and tries to parlay the gig into a NFL job.

And that would be very bad for Tennessee.

There’s a lot of moving parts to this whole Gruden deal. And honestly, I have no clue what will happen, but it’s a lot more complex than I realized.

Hopefully John Currie will have the foresight to see beyond Gruden’s name and make the right call.