The Tennessee coaching search got off to an awful start with all the out-of-control Grumors centered around former NFL coach and current Monday Night Football analyst Jon Gruden.

Fans were set on landing Gruden, so when it was announced that then-AD John Currie was going to hire Ohio State DC Greg Schiano (whose ties to Penn State’s major Jerry Sandusky scandal are loose, at best), Vol Nation was outraged.

Protests forced Currie to back out of the deal, but since he signed a memorandum of understanding with the coach, there was a chance (and still is) that Schiano could seek legal action.

On Monday, GoVols247 got ahold of the MOU via a public records request, finding that the Vols were prepared to offer Schiano a $4.4 million base salary:

The length of Tennessee’s proposed deal with Schiano was for six seasons through Jan. 31, 2024, and the former coach at Rutgers and of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Bucs would have earned a starting base salary of $4.4 million with a built-in raise of $50,000 each year.

That salary would have ranked as the 16th-highest salary in the country in 2017 among head coaches. That’s a lot to pay for a coach who hasn’t led a program of any kind since 2013.

Perhaps the Vols dodged a bullet there, but we’ll never know for sure, as Schiano will remain at Ohio State for the time being.