Former Super Bowl champion coach Jon Gruden is well aware of the rumors and reports that connected him to Tennessee's head-coaching vacancy in 2012, but he downplayed them this week during an interview with Nashville's WZTV-TV.

"That was probably my wife's mom and my wife's brother starting those rumors," Gruden said, smiling.

"I love Tennessee. My middle son's going to go to Tennessee and be a Volunteer. I believe that. And I've got a lot of orange blood in my body. But they've got the right coach now. Butch Jones is for real. I've spent a lot of time with Butch over the years. They're hot right now. They've got a young quarterback. They've got some skill players. I'm always going to be a Volunteer and always going to be a big fan."

Gruden, who's now a commentator for ESPN's "Monday Night Football," was a graduate assistant at Tennessee in 1986-87 under former coach Johnny Majors. His wife, Cindy, is a Tennessee native and former UT cheerleader whose family lives in East Tennessee.

The former NFL coach sat down for the interview while he was in Nashville this week for the Tennessee Titans' appearance on "Monday Night Football" against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

During the discussion, he was asked whether he ever was close to taking the head-coaching job at Tennessee.

"I don't want to even go there," Gruden said.

Here's a clip from the video interview with Gruden: