With nine teams in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll, the Southeastern Conference is expected to once again be the crème de la crème of college football.
It’s a level, style and tradition of football that Jon Gruden appears to have his eyes set on.
Speaking in a team meeting setting to the Georgia Bulldogs during their fall camp, the now Barstool Sports media personality got the Grumors going again by expressing his continued desire to make a return to the sidelines, and specifically in the SEC.
‘The only reason I really came here is I want to coach again,’ Gruden said. ‘I’m being honest with you, I do not (expletive), either. I want to coach again. I’d die to coach in the SEC. I would love it. I would (expletive) love it.’
While Gruden just expressed interest in coaching in the SEC, it’s been some time since he last coached in the college ranks — nearly four decades to be exact, when he served as a wide receiver coach at Pitt in 1991. He began his coaching in college football as a graduate assistant at Tennessee in 1986, a position he held for two seasons before he became the Passing Game Coordinator at Division II Southeast Missouri State in 1988.
Gruden expressing his interest in coaching college football in front of Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs isn’t the first time that the soon-to-be 62-year-old has expressed these specific interests.
‘Yeah, I’m interested in coaching,’ Gruden told CBS Sports in 2024. ‘My dad was a college coach, I was a college coach at Pitt, my wife was a cheerleader at Tennessee when I met her. Hell yeah, I’m interested in coaching. I know I can help a team, I know I can help young players get better, and I know I can hire a good staff, and that’s the only thing I can guarantee. But yeah, I’m very interested in coaching at any level, period.’
The former NFL coach, who led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title in 2003, has been out of coaching since 2021, when he resigned from the Las Vegas Raiders following reports that he repeatedly used homophobic and misogynistic language in a series of emails over a period of seven years.
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