On the evening of December 30th, we were in the middle of a little Sun Bowl pre-party at the Coach's house in El Paso when I got a text from my buddy Dimes telling me that Weis was going to Florida to be Muschamp's offensive coordinator. My initial reaction was to treat it as nothing more than an interesting rumor.
Within 48 hours it had real legs and as of yesterday it became a reality. In the last few days this has turned into a bit of a hot topic on the Notre Dame message boards with opinions ranging from not caring to up in arms and all points in between.
I was initially a little bit perplexed as to why Weis would want to return to the college ranks after he made many comments on his way out the door at ND about how the NFL was a better fit for him. Then reports surfaced that his son Charlie Jr. is headed to Florida to be a "student assistant" under Muschamp. Suddenly this all started to make a lot more sense.
What is a student assistant? Plain and simple it is the kind of awesome internship you can arrange for your kid when you are a famous coach. Good on him, I hope Charlie Junior is able to make the most of it. An additional wrinkle in the scenario is that Weis' special needs daughter Hannah, and his wife Maura will be permanently relocating back to South Bend so that Hannah can be on the farm that the Weis' Hannah & Friends nonprofit organization created for special needs children and adults. So the two Charlies will be in Gainesville while Maura and Hannah reside in South Bend. I am sure that plenty of traveling back and forth will be taking place for the family.
At the end of the day I don't think there is really anything more to this than Charlie Weis doing everything that he can to do what is best for both of his children. It is always our natural tendency to get upset when the girl we dumped turns up somewhere with a guy we can't stand but such is life.
For Muschamp this all makes sense. He's a defensive minded coach looking for a great offensive coordinator. While Weis struggled mightily in South Bend as a head coach his abilities as a play caller and as a recruiter speak for themselves. He will require some great contributions from his assistants to ensure that the fundamentals are sound with every position other than quarterback but he has the potential to do very well with the type of athletes that Florida has the ability to sign. Weis can also provide Muschamp some advice on things not to do as a first time head coach.
The transition could be difficult as the Gators are graduating a lot of experience this year and will have to fully transition from Urban Meyer's spread offense. A somewhat rocky start definitely isn't out of the question. If nothing else this will be a very interesting situation to keep an eye on going forward. Who knows, perhaps the Fighting Irish will get a shot at the Gators in a bowl game in the next few years. If I were organizing one I would be going out of my way to make that happen.
As a final side note once I heard Weis was headed to Gainesville I started wondering which of his former assistants would also turn up on the new staff. It appears that only Frank Verducci made the cut as the offensive line coach and running game coordinator. They only worked together one year in South Bend with few results, so it will be interesting to see how round two shakes out. I also heard a quick rumbling that Corwin Brown may also make an appearance but he apparently didn't make the cut. I still think that Corwin has a lot of potential in the college ranks and will be curious to see if he ever resurfaces there. Someone will eventually give him another shot.
What do you think about all of this?