.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
.vresize.36.36.medium.0.png){kind=small}
There is a “zero percent” chance on Jon Gruden will accept the University of Miami football coaching job, even though he is meeting today with Hurricanes athletic director Kirby Hocutt, a person close to Gruden told FOXSports.com on Wednesday.
The meeting between Hocutt and Gruden is to take place in Tampa, Fla. In a news release distributed Wednesday morning, the university said no news conferences are scheduled for Wednesday.
A school official told the Miami Herald that Gruden has begun to show some interest after initially rejecting the idea, but Miami officials are not sure whether he would take the job if it were offered. Two members of the university's board of trustees told the newspaper Gruden is Miami's top choice, but they expressed concern he might decide to wait for an NFL job while continuing his on-air role as television analyst with ESPN.
The school has gone so far as to evaluate how much it believes Gruden would boost attendance, the paper reported. One trustee noted Miami’s two most recent football hires (Larry Coker and Randy Shannon) were promoted from coordinator jobs and that the Hurricanes "won't do that again. They want someone who is running a successful program that they think can win a national championship."
Miami is also compiling a list of other candidates in the event Gruden says no. The newspaper reported the list includes Mississippi State's Dan Mullen, Stanford's Jim Harbaugh, Connecticut's Randy Edsall, Utah's Kyle Whittingham and Arizona's Mike Stoops, plus at least two others.
Gruden won the Super Bowl as Tampa Bay's coach in the 2002 season and was fired after the 2008 season. He was 95-81 in 11 years in the NFL, including 40-28 in four years with the Oakland Raiders before replacing Tony Dungy in Tampa.
He held four college jobs before joining the pro ranks — graduate assistant at Tennessee (1986-87), quarterbacks coach at Southeast Missouri State (1988) and receivers coach at Pacific (1989) and Pittsburgh (1991).
