Gruden officially pulls himself out of the Tennessee coaching search. A lot of Vols fans are now thinking they can get Mike Gundy which is almost as dumb as Gruden. Gundy is an Oklahoma State alum that has the backing of one of the richest boosters out there in T. Boone Pickens. The team also overachieved this year in many peoples eyes. The fan base is just gonna have to accept that the Tennessee job is not gonna attract big name guys to leave their position.
I'm now going to go on a rant about hiring coaches. Too many teams either go for the big name hire, the hot candidate, or a guy known as a good recruiter. Steve Kragthorpe had a good record at Tulsa so many felt he would be a good hire for Louisville. Turns out, as you said LouPhinFan, he wasn't the same without his assistants, and he couldn't recruit. Rich Rodriguez was seen as one of the best coaches in the Nation at West Virginia and was a disaster at Michigan. Part was because his system (mainly defensive) didn't work in the Big Ten, his staff (again defensive) were not good coaches, and he couldn't recruit the area Michigan recruited. Instead of going for good midwest players, he'd go for marginal guys down south.
Minnesota did something similar. Glen Mason was not a good recruiter, but he was a good coach that had the Gophers in bowl games consistently, with occasional top 25 finishes. They fired him and hired Tim Brewster; a guy who was never a coordinator (which isn't always a bad thing), but they didn't hire him for his coaching. They hired him because he was Mack Brown's recruiting coordinator for a long time at both Texas and North Carolina. To be fair, Brewster was not a terrible recruiter in his time at Minnesota. He was not however a good head coach. Wasn't ready to run a program. Jerry Kill was a better hire as he is known as a guy who can build solid programs. The only thing holding him back IMO is his seizures.
Gene Chizik was hired in Auburn because of his connections to the school. He won the National title because he got lucky (paid) Cam Newton to go to school there, and he had an offensive genius in Gus Malzahn. Once Malzahn left because he was desperate to be a collegiate head coach. Which is funny because Malzahn was offered the Vandy job a year earlier but turned it down because his people told him he'd get a better job if he was patient. That ended up not being the case because when he interviewed for the NC Job, he (and his wife) terrified the AD. So he got stuck with the Arkansas State job. Anyways, once Chizik lost his top assistant (and we can add DC Ted Roof as well, although the D sucked last year) he was exposed.
Time for another rant. Jon Embree and a few people are saying Colorado fired him because of racial issues. No. No No. Embree being black had nothing to do with that. In fact, had Colorado had any money to spend on coaches (their athletic department is broke) he wouldn't have been considered. Hell even then, the only reason he was considered is he went to Colorado and coached there in the past as an assistant. He was fired because his teams weren't even competitive. Same with Randy Shannon at Miami, he wasn't fired for racial issues, his teams under performed. I love when the issue of race comes out in coaching and why there aren't many minority coaches at big time programs. Again, I doubt it has much to do with race. Big time jobs don't open up much. The crappy jobs open up. Will Muschamp and Chip Kelly getting big time gigs as coordinators are the exceptions not the rule. As I mentioned, look at Gus Malzahn, after the 2010 season he was linked with an SEC job. A crappy one in Vandy, but an SEC job. He thought he could do better so he declined and he only got offered by Arkansas State
The race issue is so stupid. I understand it's an issue (the fact it took Charlie Strong so long to get a head gig is criminal) but truth be told unless circumstances dictate it, the first head coaching job a hot coordinator gets is gonna be a crappy job. Guys like Chip Kelly and Will Muschamp are exceptions not the rule.