The great Jon Gruden has returned to Knoxville

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KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- If Jon Gruden's resume did not have the attention of Team 119 on Friday afternoon, his presentation to the Volunteers certainly did.

The Super Bowl-winning coach and current ESPN Monday Night Football analyst who started his coaching career as a graduate assistant for Johnny Majors in 1986 was back on campus on Friday to speak to the current Vols ahead of his appearance at UT football camp Saturday.

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"Coach Gruden is a great friend of mine and he has proven to be a great resource for our entire staff and football program and all of our players," head coach Butch Jones said. "To be able to have an individual of the magnitude, the stature of him to come in and spend a day with us and talk football and be around the team, that's a great resource and makes us better."

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"It's an honor to come back really, because this is one of the great franchises in football here at Tennessee," Gruden said before watching the Tennessee offense go through skill work on the field at the Neyland-Thompson Sports Complex. "I'm really honored to come back, I'm excited to come back because I met my wife here, my son is going to be a freshman here and some of my best memories as a coach came at Tennessee. I want to come back and help any way I can and hopefully some of these players have the experience of a lifetime."

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"I've known Coach Jones for a long time and I know he's cut from a similar cloth as I am," Gruden said. "He has a passion for the game that is rare. He has a mission to get better from an X and O strategic standpoint and he wants to make the environment the best he can for his players."

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Gruden sees Jones' passion for Tennessee in everything he does. It is a passion for the orange and white that he shares. Like many of his fellow Volunteer fans, the progress he has seen during Jones' tenure has Gruden excited for the future.

"He desperately wants to win, he wants to bring it back to Tennessee," Gruden said of Jones. "I get emotional thinking about it. He's a fiery guy that inherited a tough situation, but when you look around and see what he's been able to do, it's got to be exciting."

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