Kirk Herbstreit says Gruden is interested in Tennessee job

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I work for Kellogg's who makes Cheez-It. Cheez-It is a major sponsor for College Game Day. We brought Herbstreit to my office in Bentonville, AR today where he did a Q&A for an hour, then signed autographs, and allowed our employees and their families take photos with him. After that his handlers rushed him over to Bentonville High School where he was the MC for the 7 on 7 tourney over there.

The people I work with are predominantly Arkansas, Oklahoma, or Missouri fans. He gave a few of the Kansas fans a hard time. I'm the lone Louisville fan in the office, so I could only ask one question during the Q&A. My question was, "In the BCS Era the Big East has outperformed the ACC by a wide margin in BCS Bowl games. Why, then, does the media give the ACC such a free pass while constantly bashing the Big East?"

Before he answered he said "Nobody is recording this session, right? No cell phones or iPhones or anything like that?" Everybody kind of laughed, but that led me to believe that anything he said that could possibly be construed as negative towards the ACC would get him in hot water. Anyway, he said that if everybody saw what he sees week in and week out it would be so obvious that the Big East isn't a BCS caliber conference. He said if the conference was so good why would Syracuse, Pitt, West Virginia, Miami, BC, and Virginia Tech all leave. He flat out said, (and I quote) "The Big East is a joke." His point is that it is a basketball conference and controlled by the basketball schools and that it's a sinking ship. He asked me who my team was and I responded "Louisville." He said that Jurich was the best AD in the country and that Louisville is a team on the teetering on the precipice right now and they need to get out of the Big East fast...really fast.

There were questions about the Petrino ordeal at Arkansas. He said that John L. was the perfect hire. His personality and antics will keep the media's interest and keep them from rehashing that embarrassing Petrino saga over and over and over again. He said Petrino will turn up somewhere because he's a great coach. He didn't know anything more than that.

In response to the question, "Who will be the next coach at Arkansas?" he responded that he was with John Gruden at a Kenny Chesney concert a few weeks ago. From that conversation he got the distinct impression Gruden was itching to get back into coaching, and it will most likely be at the college level. He said he didn't think Arkansas would be attractive enough for him, but he mentioned that the Tennessee job, should it come open, would be attractive to Gruden. 15 minutes later when asked about coaches on the hot seat he mentioned that the Tennessee coach was most at risk this year. Interesting...

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