Said it before, but it bears repeating as the #Grumors reach critical mass. SEC football programs would be much better off if they would stop trying to hire another Nick Saban.

There's only one of those.

So here's a little friendly advice for our neighbors to the north whose favorite color is dreamsicle orange. Dream on, Vols for Life, but if your Jon Gruden fantasy were to happen, he wouldn't be even a reasonable facsimile.

Look at the SEC coaches who've beaten Saban since he got things rolling in his second season in Tuscaloosa: Urban Meyer, Steve Spurrier, Les Miles, Gene Chizik, Kevin Sumlin, Gus Malzahn and Hugh Freeze.

Only Spurrier had NFL head coaching experience, as weak as it was, on his resume. With the exception of Meyer's relentless intensity, none of them bears much resemblance to the Alabama coach. With the exception of Malzahn and Sumlin, none of them still works in the SEC.

Spurrier throwing out coaching search hints to the Gator Nation doesn't count as work.

Now look at the coaches who've never beaten Saban. It's a long list, but it includes every single one of his former assistants who's gotten the chance. It should be fairly obvious by now that adjacent to Saban doesn't equal Saban.

Nor does similar to Saban.

Gruden fits that bill in only one way, as a former NFL coach who's become the white whale for an SEC program desperate to return to its long-faded glory days. Otherwise, the notion that Gruden could go to Knoxville - or anywhere else - and replicate what Saban has accomplished in Tuscaloosa is a fantasy on the scale of a Disney movie.

When Saban took the Alabama job, he had never taken even a year off to hang out in a TV booth. A Monday Night Football fixture as an analyst, Gruden hasn't coached anywhere since his seventh and final season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2008. He hasn't worked in college since he was the receivers coach at Pitt in 1991.

In five short years as a college coach, Gruden's biggest title was passing game coordinator at Southeast Missouri State. His SEC experience was limited to two years as a graduate assistant at Tennessee. Alabama has analysts with more impressive resumes in the college game.

Gruden's more extensive and successful pro career does include a Super Bowl title with Tampa Bay, but in a massive red flag, his best season with the Bucs was his first season in 2002. He made the playoffs just twice in his final six years there and didn't win a single playoff game after the Super Bowl.

That's the man you expect to make the Third Saturday in October relevant again? That's the former coach you believe can compete with the best coach in the college game?

One more question: What are you smoking up there on Rocky Top?