As Jon Gruden chases 'due course of' over reveal of offensive emails, ex-NFL coach goals for faculty job

LUTZ, Fla. — Jon Gruden has been out of the highlight, in search of objective and finding out soccer in a big workplace constructing full of recreation movie for the reason that unveiling of racist, anti-gay and misogynistic emails led to his 2021 ouster from the NFL. Almost three years after he resigned from the Las Vegas Raiders, the Tremendous Bowl-winning coach believes he is able to roam the sidelines once more at a special degree of the game: faculty soccer.

Gruden opened the doorways of his private teaching headquarters to CBS Sports activities final week for the primary interview he has granted since resigning underneath strain from the fallout of these emails. The 61-year-old mentioned soccer, his previous and current, and the way he believes his future might unfold in a university city. The query is whether or not his messy NFL exit makes him untouchable as a candidate.

When requested whether or not he has any regret about what he wrote within the emails — and pressed on the topic — Gruden responded: “I am not even, you do not even … I am not even going to get into whether or not or not. The due course of will maintain itself. I have never even had my due course of but, so for me to sit down right here and say, ‘Who mentioned what?’ You already know, we’ll simply undergo the method and depart it at that.”

Gruden resigned in October 2021 amid his fourth season with the Raiders after The Wall Street Journal and New York Times uncovered explosive emails courting again to his time as an ESPN analyst between 2011-18. Gruden’s emails have been amongst greater than 650,000 reviewed by the NFL because it investigated office misconduct inside Washington’s NFL franchise. Within the emails, Gruden used anti-gay language and derogatory language to explain NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. He additionally accused Goodell of pressuring the Rams to draft Michael Sam, an overtly homosexual participant, in 2014.

In a separate 2011 e mail, Gruden used a racially insensitive metaphor, referencing a stereotype, to explain NFL Gamers Affiliation govt director DeMaurice Smith. Gruden instructed the Journal in 2021 that his feedback have been extreme; he defined that his use of the phrase was supposed to explain somebody he felt was dishonest, although it was well known as offensive.

The well-known coach, whose superstar grew within the broadcast sales space as an analyst on ESPN’s “Monday Evening Soccer” from 2009-17, grew to become a pariah. Since his NFL ouster, he has prevented the media. Gruden supplied solely an apology through written assertion on the day he resigned and one other during a speaking engagement at an Arkansas touchdown club in August 2022. He admitted to the group he was “ashamed” of the emails.

Gruden sued the NFL in November 2021 claiming Goodell and/or others on his behalf leaked Gruden’s emails to the media to get him fired. Gruden’s attorneys in late July this 12 months filed a petition to the Nevada Supreme Courtroom asking it rethink a choice made by a three-justice panel that allowed the league to maneuver the civil contract interference and conspiracy case into arbitration. 

Whereas Gruden awaits his “due course of,” he has been content material to review recreation movie in his workplaces and mentor faculty and NFL quarterbacks who attain out for steerage. He is additionally making ready to change into a head coach once more — and the school recreation has captured his curiosity.

“Yeah, I am involved in teaching,” Gruden mentioned. “My dad was a university coach, I used to be a university coach at Pitt, my spouse was a cheerleader at Tennessee once I met her. Hell yeah, I am involved in teaching. I do know I may also help a workforce, I do know I may also help younger gamers get higher, and I do know I can rent a very good employees, and that is the one factor I can assure. However yeah, I am very involved in teaching at any degree, interval.”

CBS Sports activities spoke with a number of athletic administrators and training brokers to gauge whether or not Gruden might get a chance to be a university head coach. Some ADs hesitated to say whether or not they would interview him however all agreed Gruden would seemingly obtain curiosity from some colleges.

“If I used to be out there proper now, would I interview Jon Gruden? Yeah, most likely,” an athletic director on the Group of 5 degree admitted underneath the situation of anonymity. “There’d be no purpose to not. Now, if I used to be at Florida, no, I am not doing that. It is not the proper match, proper time. Loads of that is determined by the proper job. One of many issues with a Group of 5 [school] is you’ll be able to take a extra calculated threat.”

To that finish, an SEC faculty administrator known as Gruden “untouchable” as a training candidate.

Throughout his years off the sideline at ESPN, Gruden was ceaselessly mentioned as a candidate for high jobs within the NFL and faculty, notably being linked to vacancies at Tennessee. He might have to mood expectations now. 

Gruden nonetheless will get excited and animated when he talks soccer. On Monday following Week 1 of the NFL season, he was squinting whereas offering an impassioned breakdown of his work day at an enormous 4,110-square-foot workplace area he bought in 2015. The power incorporates 13 rooms, organized like many teaching workplaces you will have seen within the NFL and faculty soccer. He calls it the “Fired Soccer Coaches Affiliation,” although Gruden himself was technically not fired.

His 14-hour marathon day begins with a fistful of nutritional vitamins at 4 a.m. and a cup of espresso. He then checks his mail and communicates with contacts throughout the NFL and faculty soccer.

“There’s a whole lot of guys across the league that vent, you realize, after the sport. Guys I assist, simply privately,” Gruden mentioned. “And I simply sort of attempt to be a optimistic useful resource and assist anyone I can. After which I simply mainly get to my movies. I research the professional recreation largely.”

Gruden, who received Tremendous Bowl XXXVII in 2002 as coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is not only sitting in entrance of a grease board drawing performs and pausing movies of video games to burn time as a retiree. He is making ready. 

“I am not in right here for the hell of it,” he mentioned.

Faculty soccer is central to Gruden’s focus maybe as a result of an NFL return is rather more tough to think about. The school recreation is altering, and Gruden is attempting to study as a lot as he can in regards to the intricacies of the game: the switch portal, recruiting, personnel and the way recruiting providers analyze and assign star rankings to highschool gamers.

He says Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe joined him for just a few days in Tampa to review offenses, and on a now-erased grease board, Gruden had detailed and studied the stats of the sport’s high 15 quarterbacks. Throughout an informal dialog final Monday, he rapidly references a big-time throw Texas’ Quinn Ewers made on third down in opposition to Michigan two days prior. 

Gruden rejected faculty soccer for years. He is listening now.

“If there’s anyone on the market that thinks they want a candidate, anyone to return in there, perhaps lather it up somewhat bit, jazz it up somewhat bit, I will be down right here in Tampa,” Gruden mentioned. “I will be able to go if wanted.”

Nobody questions Gruden’s love for soccer. He is such an addict that he launched a YouTube channel, “Gruden Loves Soccer,” a sequence of movies offering soccer instruction and recreation breakdowns of NFL matchups. He additionally interviews stars throughout the league, together with present New Orleans Saints QB Derek Carr, who began underneath Gruden on the Las Vegas Raiders.

That NFL exit hovers over the prospect of Gruden rejoining the teaching ranks. Controversial hires aren’t unusual all through faculty sports activities. Colleges should determine how weigh Gruden’s candidacy on a scale that features Auburn soccer coach Hugh Freeze (resigned amid scandal at Ole Miss) and Ole Miss males’s basketball coach Chris Beard (fired amid a since-dismissed domestic violence felony charge at Texas) on one finish — as coaches who obtained second possibilities at high-level job — and disgraced former Baylor football coach Artwork Briles (fired amid a college sexual assault scandal), who has not. 

“I’d entertain [interviewing Gruden for an opening], however I’d not do something earlier than full discover and correct understanding from the college administration, members of our board of trustees and different people who find themselves in positions of affect regarding the program,” one Group of 5 AD mentioned. “When you select to go down the street, you need to have folks at a reasonably sturdy degree of settlement or disagreement. Yeah, it may very well be thought of, however it might undoubtedly not be a unilateral determination.” 

Athletic administrators normally make use of search companies to conduct background checks on candidates. One other Group of 5 AD instructed CBS Sports activities he sometimes polls reporters, NFL scouts and former staff who labored for candidates into consideration to “get a baseline” on coaches as folks. Some ADs even rent former FBI brokers to conduct deep background checks unrelated to any potential felony historical past.

“If it involves that, then I’ve to ask myself, is all that imputed threat definitely worth the payoff?” the Group of 5 AD mentioned.

One other concern voiced by one AD is whether or not Gruden understands the complexities of the game off the sector, together with NIL and roster retention with the switch portal. Gruden has visited with managers at NIL collectives and participant personnel administrators to glean info on the interior workings of school soccer.

Moreover, if a university workforce did rent Gruden, rival colleges would undoubtedly use his previous emails as a damaging recruiting tactic.

“I do know precisely what I am all about,” Gruden mentioned. “It is not the primary time folks have thrown mud at me. When you’re gonna get into this enterprise, you realize you are gonna should take care of a few of that stuff, however I am actually assured with no matter folks wish to say about me.”

In late July, Gruden performed drills outdoors Orlando with Jacksonville Jaguars QB Mac Jones and vast receiver Gabe Davis. He was in Central Florida this summer time to assist run drills with highschool gamers, and he invited faculty athletes to review movie with him in Tampa. When gamers go to, he generally conducts impromptu walkthrough periods within the parking zone in entrance of his workplace constructing. 

Within the preseason, Gruden spent a week with the Kansas City Chiefs — he sported a pair of their athletic shorts when CBS Sports activities visited — and in Could 2023, he served as a advisor for the Saints.

In relation to soccer, Gruden’s ardour is clear, and his opinions are as fiery as they have been when he was the highest-paid analyst at ESPN a decade in the past. He says the school recreation has change into extra like highschool soccer and the NFL has change into extra like faculty ball, which he would not essentially imagine are a optimistic transitions.

“Loads of the passes, they don’t seem to be even passes,” Gruden mentioned, “they’re operating performs with built-in move changes. You guys name them RPOs. I name it a ‘Ridiculous Cross Safety Offense.’ I can not stand the clapping snap depend.

“Do not inform me the sport is evolving. Cavemen clapped their arms and pointed at their mouth once they have been hungry earlier than electrical energy. The sport is dissolving from a sophistication standpoint. You do not see 21 personnel, you do not see 13 personnel, you do not see a quarterback get underneath the middle and take a snap and reverse out and hand it to a big-time ‘again who’s 8 yards deep.”

In the identical breath, Gruden bemoaned shotgun runs, bubble screens, false begins and too many prompt replay challenges. 

If Gruden finally secures a brand new teaching alternative, how would he construct a employees and what would his offensive philosophy be in a sport that hardly resembles the one he grew up round at Notre Dame, Pittsburgh and Tennessee? He factors to the methods and philosophical shifts made by Nebraska coach Matt Rhule, who flipped Temple and Baylor packages with double-digit losses in 12 months 1 into double-digit profitable groups in 12 months 3. Rhule was each malleable in philosophy and in keeping with participant improvement. Gruden additionally likes Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz, whose ground-and-pound offense hardly ever lights up scoreboards however normally ends in 10-win seasons. Gruden’s scheme is his scheme, however he’ll modify, too. He envisions majoring in two-back and multiple-tight finish units. 

“It is not the prettiest model of soccer, folks sort of child about it somewhat bit, however you go play these guys, man. The man’s actually good,” Gruden mentioned. “I believe [Steve Sarkisian] has finished a hell of a job at Texas. The model of soccer they play, the open formations, they usually can get after you, man. They appear completely different to me.”

Former NFL QB Trent Dilfer, who labored as an ESPN analyst earlier than changing into a highschool coach and transitioning into head football coach at UAB in November 2022, believes Gruden could be a “unbelievable faculty coach.”

“He was nice on TV as a result of he was his football-coaching self,” Dilfer instructed CBS Sports activities. “Think about that as a recruiter? I believe it might be unbelievable. I puzzled if that is what his subsequent transfer was, and it makes a whole lot of sense. I might rent him.”

Recruiting is a side Gruden hasn’t tackled since he was a receivers coach at Pitt in 1991, and even then, the method was a lot completely different. Now, with NIL contracts (and forthcoming revenue-sharing), there’s a lot to study trendy faculty soccer. The switch portal can also be extremely intriguing as a software to rebuild a roster in a single day.

“When you bought a bunch of fellows that wish to simply recruit or simply have a very good time, you are going to get your ass kicked,” Gruden mentioned. “So an important factor you need to do is rent a training employees that may relate to those gamers and educate what we would like finished.  We’d rent a very good employees that technically can put collectively our system and have it executed on recreation day.”

Because the dialog at his workplace wound down, Gruden reiterated how targeted he has been about returning to the sidelines as a coach. 

“I am planning on it. I am making ready to do it,” he mentioned. “Simply so we’re on the identical web page, that is all about, ‘What’s Gruden doing?’ He is bought his YouTube channel, he is actually working his ass off on soccer, and on the identical time, I answered your questions, you realize what I imply?”

Each customer to Gruden’s workplace receives a private tour of the large workplace area, which homes lots of of playbooks — together with one he stole from Joe Montana when he coached with the 49ers — and much more videotapes. Particular person rooms are devoted to groups Gruden coached as an assistant or led as a head coach throughout his 21-year NFL profession — from his days as an offensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles to his last days as coach of the Raiders.

The partitions within the hallways are adorned with mementos collected throughout his profession, together with quite a few framed newspaper clippings. There is a smattering of images with NFL dignitaries, mates and Professional Soccer Corridor of Famers. Recreation balls are displayed on bookshelves, and some extra are mendacity on the ground in a spare room full of Betamax tapes of practices from the Eighties and ’90s. 

“I haven’t got a lot else, you realize? I bought my spouse, my household, the man upstairs and soccer,” Gruden mentioned. “That is just about been it.”

Tucked away in a closet is a pc server, buzzing in overdrive as it really works to switch recreation movie to Gruden’s struggle room the place he research and dissects offenses and defenses day and evening, envisioning a path the place these hateful emails are a factor of his previous, a footnote in his profession somewhat than a obtrusive signal giving potential employers pause from permitting him to return to the sideline. 

Matt Zenitz and John Talty contributed to this report.