Jon Gruden does not do quiet unboxings. The Super Bowl-winning coach and Barstool Sports personality ripped into a Lindenwood Lions care package Tuesday with the same volume he once brought to sideline rants, dancing, singing, and working through a stack of cookies while the Ohio Valley Conference declared it one of his best videos yet.
The box came from Lindenwood head coach Jed Stugart, who is in his 10th season in St. Charles and his 20th as a head coach. Gruden teed it up the way he always does: full throttle, no irony.
Jon Gruden on X (formerly Twitter): “We got an awesome box here from LINDENWOOD!!Their head coach has one of the coolest backstories I have ever heard… stay tuned til the end to find out!Thank you Coach Stugart and @LindenwoodFB for this, congrats on starting 1-0!! pic.twitter.com/YVaKBEsdB4 / X”
We got an awesome box here from LINDENWOOD!!Their head coach has one of the coolest backstories I have ever heard… stay tuned til the end to find out!Thank you Coach Stugart and @LindenwoodFB for this, congrats on starting 1-0!! pic.twitter.com/YVaKBEsdB4
“We got an awesome box here from LINDENWOOD!!” he posted. “Their head coach has one of the coolest backstories I have ever heard… stay tuned til the end to find out! Thank you Coach Stugart and @LindenwoodFB for this, congrats on starting 1-0!!”
The backstory is the part that landed. Long before he was installing an FCS offense in St. Charles, Stugart chased a country music career in Nashville under the stage name Jed Lance. In the 1990s he opened for Tim McGraw, Lonestar, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, cut a demo called Here’s to All the Cowboys, and played a festival in Manhattan, Kansas, in front of more than 18,000 people. The last name Stugart, he was told, sounded too German for a country act. Lance, his middle name, stuck. Football eventually won.
Gruden treated that chapter like a gift. He sang. He danced. He ate the cookies. One reply in the thread even fingered a local source — Grandma’s Cookies in St. Charles, a bakery that has been called among the best in the country. The OVC official account piled on without hesitation:
“Coach Gruden has done a lot of these videos … this has to be the best one! He sings, dances and eats cookies.”
Stugart answered in kind, the way a former opener would:
“Not a bad voice you got @BarstoolGruden, but guitar wise, maybe get a backup band! GO LIONS!”
That is the whole exchange in miniature. Gruden brought the energy. Stugart brought the punchline. Lindenwood got the spotlight.
The Lions earned the congrats. On Aug. 27 they opened the 2026 season at Hunter Stadium and beat Charleston Southern 20-17 in a Black Out game, improving to 1-0 and 1-0 in the OVC. Next up is a Thursday night trip to Stony Brook on Sept. 3. After a brutal September road swing that also includes Missouri State and Eastern Michigan, Lindenwood returns home Oct. 10 for the Game Ball Brawl against Southeast Missouri State — and the program has put an invitation in Gruden’s pocket for that one.
Gruden’s box videos have become a cottage industry. High schools, FCS programs, CFL clubs, and Power conference schools all ship him merch because he does the homework and then performs it. Lindenwood’s package just happened to come with a coach who once shared a bill with Tim McGraw. That is catnip for a guy who already treats every hoodie like Christmas morning.
For a mid-major program still building its Division I identity, this is free national oxygen. For Stugart, it is a reminder that the Nashville detour never really left the résumé. For Gruden, it is another chance to be loud about football that most of the country still has to hunt to find.
The Lions are 1-0. The cookies are gone. The invite for Oct. 10 is on the table. If Gruden shows up at Hunter Stadium, somebody should hand him a guitar — and a better backup band.
