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Who wins Week 4’s biggest showdowns? Staff picks for every Top 25 game

The college football season is now easing into full conference competition. As such, the Week 4 slate for the Top 25 teams in the US LBM Coaches Poll features a trio of ranked matchups all involving teams getting their feet wet in new leagues.

The headliner of the group has No. 13 Oklahoma formally kicking off its first season in the SEC hosting No. 7 Tennessee. As a subplot, the Volunteers are under the direction of former Sooners’ quarterback and assistant coach Josh Heupel, though his reception by the fans in Norman probably won’t affect the action on the field.

Elsewhere, No. 12 Southern California makes its first trip east as a member of the Big Ten taking on No. 17 Michigan in the Big House, and No. 10 Utah begins life in the Big 12 at No. 15 Oklahoma State. Here’s how our expert pickers think those contests and all the other games involving ranked teams will go.

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Rome Odunze’s dad uses Bears film to call out Dan Orlovsky

The Chicago Bears are 1-1, but their offense has struggled to keep the ball moving consistently through two weeks. Just don’t place any of the blame on rookie wide receiver Rome Odunze.

In a social media post on X, ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky called out the former Washington Husky’s inability to separate as a reason he and rookie quarterback Caleb Williams are having trouble getting on the same page so far. Odunze’s father responded with a video of the young receiver running a slant route and getting open for what could have been an easy touchdown pass against the Tennessee Titans in Week 1.

‘The Bears and Caleb are gonna have to get comfortable giving Rome more ‘covered’ opportunities,’ Orlovsky wrote on Wednesday. ‘Rome isn’t getting open at this level right now − Caleb will have to get comfortable throwing him some 50/50 balls.’

James Odunze posted the video of Rome in response later that day.

All things Bears: Latest Chicago Bears news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

At 3:30 a.m. ET on Thursday morning, he shared it again with a caption calling out Orlovsky directly: ‘A quick (2 GAMES out of 17) reference-guide for those with the initials D.O. and work for the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network … W/respect.’

Odunze was not targeted on the play, which instead ended in an incompletion as Williams targeted veteran receiver Keenan Allen on the other side of the field.

Rome Odunze stats

Through two career games, Odunze has been targeted nine times – four times against the Titans in Week 1 and five times against the Houston Texans on Sunday night.

After Week 2, he is up to three receptions for 44 yards and zero touchdowns.

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Red Wings get key defenseman under contract for seven years

The big questions headed into the offseason regarding Moritz Seider were how much and how long.

The Detroit Red Wings finally answered those questions Thursday, with a seven-year deal worth $8.55 million per year. Seider’s three-year entry-level contract had an annual salary cap hit of $863,334.

While it took longer than anyone would have liked – training camp began Wednesday – to come to an agreement, the bottom line is general manager Steve Yzerman has locked up the services of a 23-year-old Calder Trophy winner who in three years has cemented himself as a pillar of the rebuild.

Seider is the team’s workhorse, playing on the top defense pairing where he is tasked with containing opposing superstars, as well as seeing time both running a power play and manning a penalty kill.

KYLE OKPOSO RETIRES: Stanley Cup winner leaves NHL after 17 seasons

FIRST DAY OF CAMP: Bruins’ Jeremy Swayman among unsigned players

Seider was the first player drafted by Yzerman since returning to Detroit in April 2019, selected at sixth overall in 2019 on the strength of his standout performances for Adler Mannheim in his native Germany’s top hockey league.

Seider made an immediate impact on the Red Wings when he arrived in Detroit for the 2021-22 season, posting 50 points in 82 games and finishing by taking home top honors as the NHL’s rookie of the year. By then he already had played a season in the American Hockey League with the Grand Rapids Griffins (2019-20). Because of the pandemic, he spent 2020-21 in the Swedish Hockey League, where he was a league and team standout with Rögle BK.

Seider posted a 42-point season in 2022-23 and also had 42 points this past season. In each of his three seasons, he has averaged 22 to 23 minutes per game.

Seider was a restricted free agent without arbitration rights. That the deal took this long to close reflects Yzerman juggling the budget as he continues to try to reshape the Wings into a team capable of reaching the playoffs on a regular basis again. The less money Yzerman could persuade Seider’s camp to take, the more there is to spend on upgrades elsewhere.

The first maximum deal inked by Yzerman during his tenure in charge of the Red Wings was Dylan Larkin’s $69.6 million extension on March 1, 2023.

Contact Helene St. James athstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter@helenestjames.

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Schumer coins ‘Trump shutdown,’ slamming GOP amid spending fight

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., placed blame on former President Trump and Republicans for a potential partial government shutdown after the House failed to pass a stopgap spending measure on Wednesday. 

He filed cloture on Thursday in a procedural move in order to act as quickly as possible once the House passes a continuing resolution (CR), which is a short-term measure that would keep spending levels steady. 

‘By filing today, I am giving the Senate maximum flexibility for preventing a shutdown,’ Schumer explained in remarks on the Senate floor. Because he filed the vehicle sooner, a vote on a forthcoming CR could also take place sooner. 

‘Democrats and Americans don’t want a Trump shutdown,’ he said, dubbing a potential partial shutdown with the moniker of Trump’s name. ‘I dare say most Republicans – at least in this chamber – don’t want to see a Trump shutdown. And the American people certainly don’t want their elected representatives in Washington creating a shutdown for the sake of Donald Trump’s claims, when it’s clear he doesn’t even know how the legislative process works.’

The New York Democrat made the decision to file the legislative vehicle after the Republican-backed CR brought to the floor by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., failed, 202 to 220, with two members of his party voting ‘present.’ Nine Republicans also voted against the six-month stopgap spending bill, which included a measure to require proof of citizenship in order to vote. Three Democrats voted in favor of it. 

Lawmakers must pass a CR before the beginning of October to avoid a partial government shutdown. 

While Republicans in both the House and Senate have called for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act to be included in a spending bill, Schumer and Democrats have made it clear that they aren’t willing to get on board with a package that includes what they consider a ‘poison pill.’ 

Trump has sounded off on the spending fight, writing on Truth Social, ‘If Republicans don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it, they should not agree to a Continuing Resolution in any way, shape, or form.’

Schumer slammed the former president in his floor remarks, asking, ‘How does anyone expect Donald Trump to be a president when he has such little understanding of the legislative process? He’s daring the Congress to shut down.’

He further urged that ‘our Republican colleagues should not blindly follow Donald Trump.’

Senate Minority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., on Wednesday responded to Trump’s post, telling reporters, ‘the one thing I will tell you is I don’t think it’s to anybody’s political benefit, you know, this far out from an election to have a government shutdown.’ 

In Schumer’s statement following the House’s failed vote and several times during his floor speech, he labeled a potential partial government shutdown as a ‘Trump shutdown,’ foreshadowing how Democrats plan to cast blame on the presidential candidate and Republicans if a shutdown does ultimately take place. 

Republicans have privately expressed concerns that any potential partial shutdown would reflect poorly on the GOP, more so than the Democrats. 

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., recently told reporters that he didn’t believe Republicans had much leverage in the CR discussion. He also claimed, ‘I don’t think Chuck Schumer cares one bit if the government gets shut down, so long as Republicans can be blamed for it.’

‘And if the government gets shut down, Republicans will be blamed for it,’ he predicted. 

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Shadowy group propped up by Democrat money accused of ‘dirty tricks’ meddling against GOP in key races

A shadowy group has been recruiting unsuspecting candidates to act as potential spoilers in competitive House races in the latest attempt from far-left groups to tip Republican races.

For the past year, a group known as the Patriots Run Project has recruited Trump supporters to run as independent candidates in key swing districts where they could siphon votes from Republicans in races that will help determine which party controls the House next year, an Associated Press review found. In addition to two races in Iowa, the group recruited candidates in Nebraska, Montana, Virginia and Minnesota. All six recruits described themselves as retired, disabled or both.

The group’s operation provides few clues about its management, financing or motivation. But interviews, text messages, emails, business filings and other documents reviewed by the AP show that a significant sum has been spent — and some of it traces back to Democratic consulting firms.

‘At that time, I was thinking, ‘Well, it would be nice to be in Congress and get to work with President Trump,’’ Joe Wiederien, 54, reflected in an interview outside the Veterans Affairs hospital in Des Moines, where he was seeking treatment for a leaking incision on his head from previous brain surgery. ‘It looks like it’s a dirty trick now.’

A fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, Wiederien was registered as a Republican until months earlier. A debilitating stroke had left him unable to drive. He had never run for office. For a time, he couldn’t vote because of a felony conviction.

But he arrived last month at the Iowa Capitol with well over the 1,726 petition signatures needed to qualify for the ballot as a conservative alternative to first-term Republican Rep. Zach Nunn. After filing the paperwork, he flashed a thumbs-up across the room at an operative he knew only as ‘Johnny.’

Thomas Bowman, 71 and disabled after a kidney transplant, said he believes he likely was recruited to run against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota to split the conservative vote and help Craig win reelection in the suburban Minneapolis district. But the self-described constitutional conservative expressed gratitude for free help getting signatures.

‘They got me on the ballot,’ Bowman said. ‘If I had to do that all by myself, I couldn’t do it.’

Patriots Run Project’s actions have resulted in an FEC complaint from the conservative group Americans for Public Trust, which alleges that Patriots Run Project’s ‘major purpose’ was ‘influencing federal elections’ and the organization thus violated campaign finance law by failing to register as a political committee.

That would force the group to file reports that would likely reveal who is managing and financing the operation, as well as the motivation behind it.

The only concrete identifying detail listed on the group’s website is a mailbox inside a UPS store in Washington, D.C.

‘It’s clear this shady scheme connected to Democrats is a threat to democracy, yet every single Democrat candidate benefiting from the plot refuses to condemn it,’ National Republican Congressional Committee spokesperson Mike Marinella told Fox News Digital. ‘If they truly mean what they say, they can’t remain silent.’

Patriots Run Project operated a series of pro-Trump pages and ran ads that used apocalyptic rhetoric to attack establishment politicians in both parties while urging conservatives to run in November.

‘We need American Patriots like YOU to stand for freedom with President Trump and take back control from the globalist elites by running for office,’ one such ad states.

Once recruited, they communicated with a handful of operatives through text messages, emails and phone calls. In-person contact was limited. Patriots Run Project advised them about what forms to fill out and how to file required paperwork.

In at least three races, petition signatures to qualify for the ballot were circulated by a Nevada company that works closely with the Democratic consulting firm Sole Strategies, according to documents, including text messages and a draft contract, as well as the firm’s co-founder. In Iowa, a different Democratic firm conducted a poll testing attacks on Nunn, while presenting Wiederien as the true conservative.

A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats’ campaign arm, said the organization had no knowledge of or involvement in the effort. House Majority PAC, the Democrats’ big spending congressional super PAC, was also not involved, a spokesman said.

Democrats are no strangers to boosting extreme candidates. During the midterms, the Left funded ads for fringe Republican candidates, hoping they would be easier to defeat in a general election.

Associated Press and Fox News Digital’s Rich Edson contributed to this report.

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Shutdown fears move House Republicans to protect military paychecks

House Republicans are moving to protect U.S. service members’ paychecks in the event of a partial government shutdown.

Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., is re-introducing her Pay Our Troops Act on Thursday, with support from at least 20 fellow House lawmakers – 16 Republicans and four Democrats.

It comes a day after more than a dozen House GOP lawmakers helped defeat Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to avert a partial government shutdown by extending the current fiscal year’s funding levels through March, known as a continuing resolution (CR). 

The Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-held Senate must come to some agreement on federal funding by Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown weeks before Election Day.

‘It’s really important that we send that message to our military men and women, that they will receive a paycheck even with all the talk and uncertainty about funding the government,’ Kiggans, herself a veteran, emphasized to Fox News Digital.

Her previous iteration of the bill, which netted 118 co-sponsors, was introduced in late September 2023 – when Congress was similarly barreling toward a partial government shutdown with no agreement in sight until the 11th hour.

Johnson’s bill would also have included the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which adds a proof of citizenship requirement to the voter registration process – a bill Democratic leaders have deemed a nonstarter.

Three Democrats crossed the aisle to vote for his plan, while 14 Republicans who were mainly opposed to a CR on principle helped defeat it.

Johnson, R-La., however, has consistently vowed not to let the government shut down. 

But Kiggans’ bill is a sign that Republicans are growing anxious about the possibility of federal programs stalling and potentially thousands of workers being furloughed.

The legislation would extend pay for all service branches, including the Coast Guard, which Kiggans said had been left out of military funding protections in past shutdowns.

‘It also covers for some defense contractors and civilians that are also essential to military service,’ she said. ‘It just provides that reassurance we don’t need our military families to be worried about [whether they are] going to get a paycheck or not.’

Asked whether the Wednesday vote made her more nervous about the prospect of a shutdown, Kiggans said there was ‘a lot of uncertainty in this Congress.’

‘I am disappointed that we weren’t able to pass the funding bills in a timely manner. I think the American public would agree,’ Kiggans said.

She said she would have preferred spending some of the August recess working on the 12 appropriations bills that Congress must pass every year rather than scramble for more time with a CR.

‘Am I surprised it didn’t pass? Well it’s – I wish it was different, and we had passed it,’ Kiggans said of Johnson’s conservative CR, which the speaker’s allies hoped would be a strong opening salvo in the House’s negotiations with the Senate.

‘But we’ll have to continue to work, and hopefully we’ll get something passed soon,’ Kiggans said.

She said her office made Johnson aware that her bill was being prepared but cautioned the legislation would likely not be deployed for a House-wide vote unless a shutdown was imminent.

‘That’s my gut instinct, is that they probably will not bring it to the floor unless we are really faced with the reality of that,’ Kiggans said.

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Support for Taylor Swift’s get-out-the-vote effort drops sharply among particular voting bloc: poll

A new poll suggests that support is dropping among all Americans for Taylor Swift’s efforts to encourage her legions of fans to vote in the upcoming elections.

Fifty-three percent of voters questioned in a Monmouth University national survey released on Thursday said they approved of Swift’s voter encouragement efforts — which she did last week in a social media post following the first and potentially only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump.

Swift, in her social media post, also endorsed Harris in the race to succeed President Biden in the White House.

Support for the pop star’s voter participation efforts is down 15 points from 68% in a Monmouth survey conducted in February, when Swift was in the spotlight for a debunked conspiracy theory surrounding the presidential election and the Super Bowl.

A baseless conspiracy theory at the time suggested that Swift was involved in a covert government plot to help President Biden win re-election. 

Swift endorsed Biden in the 2020 presidential election and for years has encouraged her fans to vote. 

The president suspended his re-election campaign following a disastrous debate performance in late June with Trump, and Harris replaced Biden two months ago atop the Democrats’ 2024 national ticket.

The new poll indicates that while support for Swift’s voter participation efforts remains high among Democrats — 87% in the new survey, unchanged from February — support has, not surprisingly, plunged among Republicans from an already low 41% earlier this year to just 20% now. Support among independents dropped from 73% to 52%, according to the survey.

‘Republicans were wary of Swift all along. What we don’t know is whether this will have any effect on the part of her fan base who already leans right,’ Monmouth University Polling Institute director Patrick Murray highlighted in the poll’s release.

More than 400,000 people clicked on the vote.gov website in the 24 hours after Swift’s endorsement of Harris in a post that also included a link to the voter registration website. What’s unclear is how many of those people will actually end up voting and whom they’ll support in the presidential election.

Trump initially downplayed Swift’s endorsement of Harris in a ‘FOX and Friends’ interview the morning after the debate. 

But on Sunday, Trump turned up the temperature, writing ‘I hate Taylor Swift’ in a social media post.

The Monmouth University poll was conducted from Sept. 11-15, with 803 registered voters nationwide questioned. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

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Josh Heupel returns to Oklahoma after firing that was blessing in disguise

Josh Heupel remains ‘beloved’ by Oklahoma, says longtime Sooners athletics director.
Bob Stoops fired Josh Heupel from his Oklahoma staff in 2014. That became the inflection point of Heupel’s coaching career.
Josh Heupel says now that 2014 firing ‘absolutely’ was blessing in disguise that led him to Tennessee.

His succinct answer stands on its own. It requires no elaboration.

Two syllables. Seven letters.

That’s all Castiglione needs to explain how Oklahoma feels about Josh Heupel.

“Beloved,” Castiglione, Oklahoma’s veteran athletics director, told me this week.

No equivocation.

Heupel remains an Oklahoma legend, and Castiglione said the school plans to treat him as such in the pregame before the No. 13 Sooners host No. 7 Tennessee on Saturday.

“We’re working through all of that, but we will absolutely recognize him in a way that is appropriate,” Castiglione said.

And then the game will begin, with Heupel standing on the opposing sideline as the red-hot coach of the Vols, thanks in part to the fact that Oklahoma fired him a decade ago, the inflection moment of Heupel’s coaching career.

The January 2015 day that Bob Stoops canned Heupel, his former star quarterback and longtime lieutenant, placed an even bigger chip on Heupel’s shoulder.

It also freed Heupel of his bonds to his alma mater and afforded him the chance to restart.

Heupel set out from Norman to freely build the offense he wanted to operate. That offense put Heupel on a path to restoring Tennessee to prominence, rather than face the burden of Stoops’ shadow.

Heupel’s career shines as bright as ever.

So, is he ready to call his firing from OU a blessing in disguise?

“Yeah, absolutely,” Heupel said Wednesday. “Proud of a lot of what we did or I was a part of while I was (at Oklahoma), but I wouldn’t change anything.

“I’m fortunate and blessed to be here and absolutely love it on Rocky Top.”

Josh Heupel ‘talked a little more trash than I was used to’

Barry Odom needed only one game against Josh Heupel, a 1999 Big 12 meetup in Norman, to realize this guy was unlike most quarterbacks he faced.

“He talked a little more trash than I was used to quarterbacks talking,” said Odom, the former Missouri linebacker who’s now UNLV’s coach, “and he backed it up with his play.”

That chip on Heupel’s shoulder existed before Stoops fired him.

Maybe, that chip traces to Heupel being under-recruited as a star quarterback from Aberdeen, South Dakota. Heupel journeyed through the Football Championship Subdivision and junior college pitstops before Mike Leach recruited Heupel to play quarterback for Stoops and the Sooners. In 2000, Heupel became the Heisman runner-up and led Oklahoma to its lone national championship in the past 38 years.

That Stoops fired Heupel years later just made that chip grow a little bigger.

And that was just fine by Odom.

Odom, after becoming Missouri’s coach before the 2016 season, knew he wanted to do something outside the box with the Tigers’ offense.

Missouri had a promising young quarterback, Drew Lock.

“I wanted a quarterback’s guy,” Odom said.

Who better than Heupel?

Heupel had just finished a season as Utah State’s offensive coordinator. Odom thought he could nab him to be Missouri’s offensive coordinator. Still, Odom found Heupel hard to pry loose.

“It wasn’t easy to get him hired, because he’s a loyal guy,” Odom said.

Odom coached on the defensive side of the ball. That meant Heupel, officially his offensive coordinator, functioned as Missouri’s “head coach of the offense,” as Odom described it.

“I trusted him,” Odom said. “There wasn’t anybody in the building who outworked him.”

Heupel enjoyed free reign to install the warp-speed spread offense that became his calling card and later propelled him to head coaching success at Central Florida and Tennessee.

Missouri’s offense markedly improved in Heupel’s first season on Odom’s staff. The following year, the offense really took off. So did Heupel’s career.

When UCF came calling, Odom knew Heupel couldn’t pass on this opportunity. He always figured his time working with Heupel would be limited.

“I knew we wouldn’t probably have a chance to work together very long,” Odom said, “because I thought he would be a head coach because of his vision, his consistency, his disciplined approach and his ability to see the big picture.”

And what of Stoops’ view of the big picture a decade ago?

Did Stoops make the right call?

It’s tough to answer that definitively, but here are the facts: Stoops brought in Lincoln Riley to take over the offense. The Sooners won 11 games in each of the next two seasons before Stoops retired. Riley ascended to the Oklahoma throne, and the Sooners made three consecutive playoff appearances before Riley flew the coop to Southern California.

By then, Heupel had Tennessee cooking.

Why Bob Stoops fired Josh Heupel, an ‘iconic figure’ of Oklahoma football

Something needed to change after Oklahoma flopped throughout a 2014 season that ended with a 40-6 loss to Clemson.

Stoops changed his offensive leadership. He retained his defensive coordinator, brother Mike Stoops, and fired his co-offensive coordinators, Heupel and Jay Norvell.

This ended Heupel’s nine-year run on Stoops’ staff. More, it killed the possibility of Heupel becoming Stoops’ heir.

Stoops, in his autobiography, wrote that firing Heupel stands as “the worst day” of his 18 years coaching the Sooners.

It’s not uncommon for coaches to fire a coordinator or two after a disappointing season, and 2014 qualified as a disappointment. The Sooners opened the season ranked No. 3 and ended with a loss to rival Oklahoma State in Bedlam and a whipping in the Russell Athletic Bowl.

Firing Heupel, though, was undeniably unique. He wasn’t just any assistant. He’d become part of the soul of Oklahoma football. He’d captured the hearts of Sooners fans and provided jet fuel to Stoops’ tenure, first as player and then as an assistant who developed Sam Bradford.

“He is one of the iconic figures in Oklahoma football history,” Castiglione said of Heupel.

Castiglione, the school’s athletic director since 1998, remembers fondly Heupel’s role as quarterback during Oklahoma’s famous 2000 march through “Red October,” when the Sooners beat No. 10 Texas, No. 3 Kansas State and No. 1 Nebraska in succession.

Castiglione also stressed Heupel’s “positive and notable impact” throughout his years on Stoops’ staff.

“I don’t want to speak for coach (Stoops), but it was a really, really difficult decision to step back and see what a coach feels has to be done,” Castiglione said, “but there wasn’t any hint of anybody being a scapegoat for anything. That was totally not the case. Just a time that a leader believes that some changes have to occur.”

Stoops, who did not respond to my interview request, released a public statement in which he wrote that he has “great respect” for Heupel and Sooners coach Brent Venables, another of his former assistants.

Stoops described Heupel as “the MVP of all my recruits” and “the catalyst” of his tenure.

Then, forced to chart a new course, Heupel became the catalyst for Tennessee.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

Subscribe to read all of his columns. Also, check out his podcast, SEC Football Unfiltered, and newsletter, SEC Unfiltered.

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Brewers 20-year old star rookie gets surprise for clinch party

But there’s one thing he cannot do — legally drink alcohol.

That meant his celebration would be a bit different when the Brewers clinched the National League Central on Wednesday, and apparently, his teammates let him know about it.

Inside the clubhouse for Chourio was a stroller full of non-alcoholic options, plus a Chourio shirsey and a bobblehead in case anyone doubted for whom the ensemble was intended.

Chourio led off the ninth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies with a triple and eventually scored the winning run on Jake Bauers’ single for a 2-1 victory. The Brewers had clinched earlier in the day when the Chicago Cubs fell to Oakland, but the walk-off win was icing on the cake.

All things Brewers: Latest Milwaukee Brewers news, schedule, roster, stats, injury updates and more.

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Jon Gruden eyes return to coaching … in college football?

Three years after resigning as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders after the emergence of racist, misogynist and homophobic emails, Jon Gruden wants to return to coaching

Only — this time — he’s eyeing the college game.

Gruden, who has stayed mostly out of the public spotlight since his resignation and since he filed a lawsuit in Nevada against the NFL in November 2021, opened up about his future with CBS Sports.

‘Yeah, I’m interested in coaching,’ Gruden, 61, told CBS Sports. ‘My dad was a college coach, I was a college coach at Pitt, my wife was a cheerleader at Tennessee when I met her. Hell yeah, I’m interested in coaching. I know I can help a team, I know I can help young players get better, and I know I can hire a good staff, and that’s the only thing I can guarantee. But yeah, I’m very interested in coaching at any level, period.’

Gruden has launched a YouTube channel called ‘Gruden Loves Football’ in which he provides breakdowns, mostly about NFL teams and matchups, and interviews former and current players. Launched just two weeks ago, Gruden has already posted 18 videos, as of Wednesday evening. He has interviewed current Saints quarterback Derek Carr, whom he coached for three-and-a-half seasons with the Raiders, and former Saints and Chargers quarterback Drew Brees.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

Gruden, who has worked out of a building in Tampa he refers to as the ‘Fired Football Coaches Association,’ told CBS Sports that he continues to study the game from those offices.

‘If there’s somebody out there that thinks they need a candidate, somebody to come in there, maybe lather it up a little bit, jazz it up a little bit, I’ll be down here in Tampa,’ Gruden said. ‘I’ll be ready to go if needed.’

Gruden resigned as head coach of the Raiders after emails he sent over the previous decade, while he was employed by ESPN as a ‘Monday Night Football’ analyst, became public in October 2021. The emails were uncovered as part of the league’s investigation into the Washington team’s alleged toxic workplace culture, which concluded in the summer of 2021 and included no written report.

In 15 seasons in the NFL, Gruden compiled a 117-112 record, including a victory in Super Bowl 37. He most recently served as an advisor for the Milano Seamen, the five-time Italian Bowl champions in the European League of Football.

Though the bulk of his experience is in the NFL, Gruden served as the wide receivers coach of the Pittsburgh Panthers in 1991. He was also the receivers coach for Pacific in 1989, the passing game coordinator for Southeast Missouri State in 1988 and a graduate assistant for Tennessee in 1986-87.

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