Bo Hardegree has officially worked his way up through three levels of Tennessee football.

The Titans' first-year quarterbacks coach, Hardegree is a Jackson native and former Vols quarterback who has made his way back to his home state after spending time on six other NFL staffs dating to 2014. Most recently, he was the quarterbacks coach and interim offensive coordinator for the Las Vegas Raiders, who started the season 3-5. They went 5-4 after his promotion and improved their scoring from 15.8 points per game to 22.9 points.

A Jackson Central-Merry graduate who played in one game at Tennessee in 2006, Hardegree is now tasked with helping to develop young quarterback Will Levis and turning around the offense of the team he grew up watching.

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"I think it was when (Titans controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk) came to one of our practices and I met her, I told her I think my first NFL game was when (the Titans) were in Memphis," Hardegree told The Tennessean. "They played the Giants and my dad took me to a game before they made the transition to here. Yeah, I was a big fan. A big fan growing up."

The team then known as the Tennessee Oilers beat the Giants 10-6 at the Liberty Bowl that afternoon. The Titans have won plenty of those kinds of ugly, low-scoring, grit-it-out games in the quarter-century since, but that's not the kind of offense the Titans are expected to play under Hardegree and the new staff, led by coach Brian Callahan.

Hardegree's pedigree includes working with a number of pass-inclined coaches and big-name quarterbacks. He was an offensive assistant alongside Callahan on the 2014 Denver Broncos, a team quarterbacked by Peyton Manning. He followed coach Adam Gase from Denver to stops in Chicago, Miami and with the New York Jets, serving his first three years as quarterbacks coach in Miami from 2016 to 2018. Then he latched on with the New England Patriots for a year, working alongside coordinator Josh McDaniels, who ultimately brought him to Las Vegas.

Hardegree said he always maintained the thought of someday making it back to Tennessee. His wife, Lauren, a doctor, is from Miami and has moved with Bo throughout the journey. But now they're excited to be somewhere a little more familiar — and familial.

"It’s awesome. It’s a dream come true," he said. "Obviously my family all being here. I have family in Nolensville. Family and friends down in Jackson. So it’s great to see people that I get to see a couple times a year now a couple times a month at that, or they can visit me any time."

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Nick Suss is the Titans beat writer for The Tennessean. Contact Nick at nsuss@gannett.com. Follow Nick on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, @nicksuss.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee native Bo Hardegree comes back as Titans QB coach