“Grumors” have been circulating around Knoxville for close to a month. And one of Jon Gruden’s most recent interviews will do nothing to quell those rampant speculations.
Gruden, who is currently employed by ESPN, did an interview with a representative from the Denver Broncos to discuss the Denver and Kansas City match-up that he will be helping to call on Monday Night Football on ESPN. And near the tail end of the interview, Gruden was asked about potentially getting back into coaching sometime soon.
“I draw plays every day; who knows what life will bring,” Gruden responded. “I haven’t lost the game, though, in a few years, so I got that going for me.”
The reporter then stated that Gruden has it “pretty good” with ESPN (he reportedly makes $6.5 million annually with ESPN). Gruden agreed, but he followed that up with another response to him potentially returning to coaching.
“You never know,” he stated. “We’ll see what happens.”
It’s worth noting that while Vol fans may be excited to hear that Gruden is open to coaching again, Tennessee currently doesn’t have a coaching vacancy to fill. The Vols’ biggest division rival, however, does.
Florida had a “mutual parting of ways” with head coach Jim McElwain on Sunday. Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin stated on Sunday that Florida would not discuss anything with any coaches who are currently employed with a school while they search right now.
But that criteria doesn’t apply to Gruden.
Jon Gruden has said before that he wouldn’t mind returning to coaching, but he’s remained employed with ESPN all the while. This could just be more talk from the highly-paid ESPN analyst, or he could be telling the truth. As he said, “we’ll see what happens.”
2 Responses
I personally feel like the timing of naming Gruden our next coach is some kind of legal issue and it is a “silent but done” deal otherwise. Thats just the way it feels to me
Hope you are right. Jon would make UT a good place to recruit as well. If they let him slip to Florida, bad times will continue.