Jon Gruden started his football coaching career with the Tennessee Volunteers as a graduate assistant in 1986. He has coached in the NFL before and the last team he coached an NFL team was during the 2018-2021 seasons when he coached the Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders. Gruden was fired during the 2021 season.
He just recently signed with Barstool Sports. However, many were wondering if Jon Gruden would ever become a head coach in either the NFL or college football ever again.
Jon Gruden Talks About How He Almost Took the Tennessee Volunteers Coaching Job Many Times
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On Friday, Jon Gruden went onto Pardon My Take. He talked about how in the past, the Volunteers had some head coaching opportunities and it didn’t seem to work out in the end for either party. Gruden said:
“My wife cheered at Tennessee. I love Tennessee. I was a graduate coach there, and I did talk to the Athletic Director, and I don’t look up to anybody more than I look up to Peyton Manning and Kenny Chesney. Those are two of my favorite Tennessee guys. And I was very interested in doing it. At that time I was having so much fun on Monday Night Football with Mike Tirico I couldn’t take any other job… I almost did consider pulling the trigger there.”
Josh Heupel is the head coach of the Volunteers. He has been the head coach since the 2021 season. Heupel has the team on the verge of making the college football playoffs this season. Tennessee has a huge game this weekend against the Georgia Bulldogs.
Fans React
Instead we got Jeremy Pruitt…. But Pruitt led to Heupel. So I’m perfectly fine with how things turned out.
— Joseph Michael (@RegalMill388) November 15, 2024
I think a whole book should be written about the Grumors
— Landon Raby (@lambo_raby10) November 15, 2024
After Georgia does what it wants to Tennessee Saturday, they’ll be wishing they chose Gruden 😬
— B (@GoBucks5240) November 15, 2024
It feels like older coaches in the NFL are having a hard time adjusting to the recent changes with NIL and transfer portal. While it would seem like a home run hire I doubt how well he would actually have done
— Reivax (@DaRealReivax) November 15, 2024
Gruden in the SEC with Saban, Kirby, Lane, etc would have been great
— The Gentlemen’s Outlaw (@TG_Outlaw) November 15, 2024
It would have been interesting to see if Jon Gruden was the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers at one point in his career. At this point, it is all just stories.
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