Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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www.BLUEANDGOLD.com SEPT. 19, 2020 19 For the most part, Kiffin gave Weis Jr. the freedom to run the of- fense, but Kiffin was still an offen- sive-minded head coach, and thus there were some limitations. That is, until he left for the Mississippi head coaching job prior to FAU's matchup against SMU in the Boca Raton Bowl. "That bowl game was just pure Charlie Weis Jr. offense," said Jeffers, who was an offensive line graduate assistant at FAU in 2018 and 2019. "There was stuff we ran in the bowl game that Charlie had been want- ing to run all year and, for whatever reason … Coach Kiffin, it's his show, he can say yes or no to anything. So Charlie threw them in there finally because Lane had gone to Ole Miss. "We're not even supposed to be in this game. We had 90 percent of our offensive production out for that game, including a Mackey Award winner [the nation's tight end], our top receiver and top rusher — and put up 52 points on a top-25 team." A few weeks later, Weis Jr. met with Jeff Scott, who'd just taken over the South Florida program. When he accepted the job, the COVID-19 pan- demic was still weeks away from hit- ting the pause button on the college football world and it'd be months before USF added Notre Dame to its schedule. COMING HOME Built in 1953, the former building housing Saint Joseph High School closed in 2012, and students, faculty and staff transitioned to a new fa- cility in downtown South Bend. In 2016, a majority of the old school was demolished. A few years ago, Weis Jr. visited the new high school, touring its turf football field and walking the tun- nel that runs from the school, down through a hillside and opens near the stadium's home bleachers. The football office is still connected to the boys' locker room, but there's no longer rancid smells or rodents. Even given the loss of his old high school and the fact that his parents no longer reside in the area, Weis Jr. still visits South Bend on a regular basis. "Five years growing up was spent there," he said. "For me, being a coach's son, that's about the longest I was anywhere. I definitely consider South Bend home. We still have that house, and I've gone back and forth a bunch of times throughout the years." With USF joining Notre Dame's 2020 schedule in August, Weis Jr. will make another return trip home. "Notre Dame is such a special place and such a cool place to play at," Weis Jr. said. "Obviously, there's a lot of memories of growing up there and being on the sidelines and watching games, and some of the cool times from all that certainly popped up. "More than anything, I'm just re- ally excited to go back and actually coach there for the first time." Only this time he'll walk the visitor sidelines and sit in the coaches box at Notre Dame Stadium — and without his father in attendance. The stands will be filled to 20 per- cent capacity and Weis Sr. wants to avoid creating an additional distrac- tion in a matchup already burdened by the COVID-19 pandemic and the return of a familiar name. "He has to live with the stigma of having the same name as me," Weis Sr. said. "Not with the stigma of being my son, but having the same name. There's good and bad with being a junior, if you know what I'm saying. Sometimes, you hear 'Charlie Weis' and that's a good thing. Some- times you hear 'Charlie Weis' and that's a bad thing. "When you're the second gen- eration, you have to live with the good and the bad, even though you haven't done anything for anyone to say anything bad about you." The last time the son of a former Fighting Irish head coach came into Notre Dame Stadium, Skip Holtz's South Florida team left South Bend victorious, defeating the 16th-ranked Irish 23-20. On Saturday, history seems unlikely to repeat itself. Head coach Brian Kelly has turned Notre Dame into a stable, top-10 program, and South Florida is coming off a 4-8 season that led to an over-hauled coaching staff. Still, it'll be impossible to escape the storylines surrounding Weis Jr.'s return to Notre Dame Stadium and the off chance he's able to pull off the upset, especially given everything he's been through. "If it were in a movie, it would seem too hokey," Jeffers said, "but here we are." ✦ Weis Jr. once dreamed of becoming the youngest head coach in college football and became the sport's youngest play caller at 24, when he served as Lane Kiffin's offensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic. PHOTO COURTESY FLORIDA ATLANTIC ATHLETICS "Notre Dame is such a special place and such a cool place to play at. Obviously, there's a lot of memories of growing up there and being on the sidelines and watching games, and some of the cool times from all that certainly popped up. More than anything, I'm just really excited to go back and actually coach there for the first time." WEIS JR.