DALLAS - Full disclosure: University of Kansas grad, class of ... not that long ago. Feels like yesterday. Great to watch my basketball team flirt with not only NCAA violations, but a title run every so often.
Disgusting to watch my college football team destroyed by the likes of NW North Dakota State every year.
When Kansas hired Fort Worth's own Turner Gill to replace Mark Mangino a few years ago my reaction was, "Uhh ... well, OK. Maybe." And I never, ever liked Mangino even when he led the team to the Orange Bowl win. The man was a bully.
After watching Gill's KU team get destroyed at Baylor in his first season my reaction was, "Don't let him get on the plane."
Now that Gill was fired after just two seasons of some of the most disorganized, inept football the program has ever seen, which says just so much, Kansas made a splashy hire by landing former Notre Dame head coach and long time NFL assistant Charlie Weis.
My reaction was, "He must have been desperate to be a head coach again." His stint in South Bend was ugly, and I am not sure if any other BCS school would have hired him to be a head coach other than one like a Kansas.
So I asked him this on Tuesday at the Big 12 media day.
The Big Mac Blog: When you took the job, one of the lines that I had heard was: 'Oh, geez, he must have been desperate to be head coach again to take that job.' Were you desperate to be a head coach again and do you think that assessment's decidedly unfair?
Charlie Weis: I was offered other jobs for a lot more money, just so you know that.
The Big Mac Blog: Which ones?
Charlie Weis: It's not important. What's important is why did I take this job. And let's look at it from my perspective. You're coming into a team that was 3‑10 two years ago and 2‑10 last year. Not so long ago, it's 2007 and 2008, and they're playing in the Orange Bowl and the Insight Bowl and winning.
"It wasn't like it was 20 years ago now. Okay. It was a short time frame ago that that football program was playing in bowl games and winning.
"So you say, okay, they were there, they're here, what happened? How did they get from here to here and then how do you get back up? And to be honest with you, I think it's a very challenging situation. And it's one that, as I talked over with my wife and my son, we thought would be a very good challenge for us as a family but also very rewarding if it paid dividends."
For the sake of my alma mater's football program, I sincerely hope this hire works. Weis is right in that KU is just three hours away from two teams that have figured out how to win - Kansas State and Missouri. Why Kansas can't finish with seven or eight wins is more than a little frustrating.
It still comes down to players. Mangino was able to win because he rolled the dice on a ton of kids and got more than a little lucky with Todd Reesing as his quarterback; I am convinced Mangino never knew what he had in Reesing until he plugged him in because he didn't like any of his other quarterbacks.
I do believe Weis can coach, and that he has been humbled, but once he runs out of Notre Dame transfers, like Dayne Crist, it will come down to whom he can convince to come to a basketball school to play football.
@MacEngelProf
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Mac,
You say in the title of this article that you don't believe Coach Weis. Why don't you believe him? I haven't yet seen any reason to not believe he is being honest when he says that he had other offers for more money. After his so-so record at ND, he was hired to be offensive coordinator for the KC Chiefs and for Florida. He appears to still be wanted by some professional and elite college programs.
Posted by: Hueffenhardt | 07/25/2012 at 08:27 AM
mac is an idiot pure and simple and the ST would do everyone a favor and jusr fire this idiot so we dont have to read his idiot blogs and columns.
Posted by: rocketman9495 | 07/25/2012 at 08:49 AM
How do morons like this get writing jobs?
Posted by: Brad | 07/25/2012 at 09:53 AM
You didn't go to KU, I was there and I don't remember you at all. I agree with Brad, who is missing an m. Why don't you go back to Indianapolis with the rest of the Mormons.
Posted by: Troy Claycamp | 07/25/2012 at 12:55 PM
Brad
How do morons like me get writing jobs?
Nepotism ... duh?
Thanks for reading.
Posted by: The Big Mac Blog | 07/25/2012 at 02:08 PM
I double over laughing, then wretching, when I read this. Weis is the King of Liars. He belongs back at Notre Dame with his kind. The guys LIES and LIES and LIES. Nobody wanted this guy as a head coach in college or the NFL. He bomb at ND and he will fail in Kansas.
I hope they aren't paying him. Weis is a lair and a fraud.
Posted by: Dan M. | 07/25/2012 at 02:41 PM
The idea is to build a winning program recruits will want to come to and to do so before running out of those ND transfers. That potential is there. It remains to be seen how it actually turns out. In any case, it surely cannot be worse than sticking with Turner Gill for another year.
Posted by: Steve | 07/25/2012 at 05:43 PM
Weis was an arrogant over paid jerk at Notre Dame. He'll be a total bust at Kansas. And he is a massive liar. Massive.
Posted by: ND Sux | 07/25/2012 at 06:12 PM
Weis is an idiot. He will be another huge bust. Kansas was stupid to bring him in. It will be entertaining to see who can get fatter; him or Mangino.
Posted by: Fatty | 07/25/2012 at 06:39 PM
I love this blog. It sucks but you sure do know how to touch a nerve. Weis is a complete disaster. What a big fat joke. Kansas deserves better. Weis is my new hate toy. Keep writing about him. Chronicle his first season. I am going to torch him all season long, on this blog and any other site where his name appears. He sucks.
Posted by: Khan | 07/25/2012 at 07:14 PM
Charlie Weis is a more accomplished eater than he is coach. I hate him. I hope he goes back to Notre Dame or New England... or where ever. Kansas football sucks bad enough. Why do we have to have a crappy football team and a coach that is a lying bag of crap
Posted by: I hate Charlie Weis (worse than tommy tubberville) | 07/25/2012 at 09:02 PM
Charlie Weis cannot win unless he has the other team's defensive and offensive signals prior to the game. That much we already know. The question is how long he will last before he is bought out of his contract, yet again.
Posted by: johngg | 07/25/2012 at 09:39 PM
Weis is a fraud. He looked amazing with Hall of Fame QB tom Brady. Give him a plate of nachos and send him back to Soth Bend. Kansas doesn't need the head ache.
Posted by: Tom Neff | 07/26/2012 at 07:31 AM
We Jayhawk fans realize that the Weis hire was a bit of a gamble, but we were on the outside looking in during the coaching carousel after last year and most of us were losing hope of finding a worthy coach. Message board posters like me were mostly skeptical after the hire, but Coach Weis has been nothing if not a first class representative for our school. He's obviously humbled by what went down at Notre Dame and he chooses his words wisely, very wisely. I think he's the right choice for us and so do the players who have bought in.
Posted by: jhawkclassof02 | 07/26/2012 at 08:29 AM
Who else could Kansas have hired that would have brought such instant credibility to the program? No one. Kansas was a job that none of the touted up and comings wanted. If weis has even a little success, then maybe Kansas will be able to snag one of those guys the next time. Hiring weis may have been an expensive hire, but it will prove far from costly.
Posted by: joe | 07/26/2012 at 11:32 AM
Weis = Idiot. The End.
Posted by: Monkey Man | 07/26/2012 at 03:07 PM