When Lane Kiffin was the offensive coordinator at Alabama in 2015, he interviewed a recent college grad who had done his undergraduate work at Florida and Kansas. Charlie Weis Jr., the son of the former Notre Dame and Kansas coach, sought an analyst job with the Crimson Tide, and Kiffin had been told the kid had a photographic memory.
So during the interview, Kiffin handed Weis his driver’s license and his credit card. You can have these for three minutes, Kiffin recalled telling Weis. Then I’ll take them back and start asking questions. After the allotted time ended, Kiffin took back the cards and started the test.
What street do I live on?
Weis answered correctly. He correctly recited various facts gleaned from the two cards. The next day, Kiffin decided to test the job candidate’s retention.
What’s the expiration date on my credit card?
Weis answered correctly. If he didn’t already have the job, that cinched it.
Weis and Kiffin spent two seasons together in Tuscaloosa. Well, most of two seasons. Kiffin jokes that they were 28–1 together and 0–1 apart. This year, they’re back together with different job titles. Kiffin is the second-year head coach at Florida Atlantic, leading a team that went 11–3 and won Conference USA last season. Weis, who turned 25 in April, is the offensive coordinator. “Sometimes it’s crazy to think about,” Weis said Sunday.
Weis doesn’t think about it too often, though. He’s too busy for introspection. A night earlier, Kiffin and Weis had led the FAU offense through its most important scrimmage of the preseason. They’re trying to winnow down a quarterback race that features three transfer quarterbacks competing to take the job abdicated by 2017 starter Jason Driskel, who opted to retire from football in January and who obtained a civil engineering degree in May. In less than two weeks, the Owls will open the season at Oklahoma. They haven’t trailed in a game since October, but they haven’t been challenged the way they will by the three-time defending Big 12 champ.
Whether former Sooner Chris Robison, former Florida State Seminole DeAndre Johnson or former Arkansas Razorback/SMU Mustang Rafe Peavey will win the job is a hot topic on campus, but an even more intriguing question is this: Which son of a famous football coach will call the plays? Will it be Kiffin—the son of legendary NFL defensive coordinator Monte—or Weis? Weis, asked what percentage of plays he called in Saturday’s scrimmage, deferred. “That’s up to coach Kiffin to talk about,” he said. “It’s not my place.” Kiffin didn’t give a direct answer either, and both men discussed a collaborative effort.
Their collaboration at Alabama worked beautifully for the Crimson Tide. Kiffin designed the game plans with help from Weis, whose memory and attention to detail allowed him to find vulnerabilities in defenses that Kiffin could exploit on gameday. If the Owls can now combine Kiffin’s ability to spot potential huge plays in-game with Weis’s thorough prep and instant recall, the offense should be as good or better than the one that put up 6.8 yards a play and 40.6 points a game last season. That recall, Kiffin believes, will give FAU the equivalent of the photos that we see NFL quarterbacks thumbing through on the sidelines during games. Such photos aren’t allowed in college football, but there is no rule against a coach taking one in his head. Kiffin had an idea Weis could do that when, during his Alabama interview, Weis rattled off all 11 jersey numbers for the starting defense of a team he’d scouted earlier. After working so closely with Weis in ’15 and ’16, Kiffin is sure of it.
https://www.si.com/college-football/2018/08/20/charlie-weis-...