Tennessee has a head coaching opening right now. Vols fans want Jon Gruden to fill that opening. It doesn't matter that Gruden has coached in college since 1991 and hasn't coached, period, since 2008, Gruden was a Tennessee graduate assistant 30 years ago and he won a Super Bowl and he's on Monday Night Football and he has to be Tennessee's head coach right now.
Vols fans, understandably, are wound a little tightly right now. FootballScoop's Twitter mentions has been an avalanche of words you would never tell your grandmother for merely sharing the chatter we've heard in the profession that Gruden won't come to Tennessee.
And when a group of people is so single-minded on one outcome and so humorless about their determination for that outcome, well, sometimes you can't help but troll them.
Let's start with a group of national writers, who are so sure that Gruden won't come to Knoxville they're willing to publicly embarrass themselves if he proves them wrong.
Let's take it a step further now. Former Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin is trolling the program he used to lead.
And here's Gruden himself getting in on the fun.
And finally, here's Tennessee's own official Twitter account egregiously trolling their own fans. Unless you believe that Tennessee truly believed its fans were waiting on baited breath to see if Brady Hoke would be on Finebaum's show on Thursday afternoon. (They weren't.)
As for what Gruden as actually said on the record throughout this saga, all we have is this.
"You know what Mike, I haven’t talked to anybody and all I really have in my life is my family and football, that’s it,” Gruden said on Mike & Mike on Wednesday. "I’m real sensitive to the coaches that are out there, so I don’t speculate. I just love football and I’m just trying to hang on to the job I have. I’m very fortunate to be with the people I’m with.
"I don’t know what's going to happen in the future, I just know this — I’m going to give my best effort to the game, stay prepared and I love Monday Night Football, don’t plan on leaving, but as you know in life, you never say never to nothing."
Always remember: Grumors exist because Gruden wants them to exist. And for as long as they do, Tennessee fans are going to be the easiest target in America.