Jerry Gray: Tennessee Titans DC Candidate?

[Update]: Bobby Burton of Hookem.com is reporting on Tuesday morning that Jerry Gray has been contacted by new Titans coach Mike Munchak and is "the leading candidate" for the DC position in Nashville. However, Chip Brown on his Twitter feed countered by saying that Gray his not interested and had not been contacted as of Monday. Let the scoop war begin! Er, continue. --GoBR--

Sigh. This type of thing should have been expected as soon as former NFL defensive coordinator Jerry Gray went from being a position coach in the league to a position coach in college. Frankly, the guy is completely overqualified for his current position as defensive backs coach at Texas and the only reason it was appealing to him was because of his strong desire to make it back to Austin after Mack Brown decided not to give him serious looks when the defensive coordinator job came open at the beginning of 2008 and again after Will Muschamp left for Florida.

For Texas fans, the euphoria of hiring Gray after the painful departure of the loved and respected Duane Akina replaced the practical considerations of how easy it was going to be to keep him in place. Before Gray has even really gotten settled into his new office on the 40 Acres, roughly three weeks into his job, there's an NFL team that has apparently come calling. That would be the Tennessee Titans and new coach Mike Munchak, Jeff Fisher's replacement.

According to Kirk Bohls, Gray could be targeted by Munchak for the defensive coordinator vacancy in Nashville. Gray and Munchak worked together with the Titans for four years, a stretch that included the Super Bowl loss to the Rams. However, the source did tell Bohls that the impending lockout could be a major factor in Gray's decision and much to the

If this is a false alarm, the lesson from this story for Texas fans is that Gray may well have to turn down several of these opportunities if he's going to remain a Longhorn position coach for more than a year or two.