Just when you can’t take another selfish, me-first college football story, do I have the remedy for you.
When you can’t watch another player or coach using one job to find another, and can’t stomach money becoming the driving force of all things success and stature, let me introduce LSU offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr.
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The next big thing in college football.
Doesn’t care about job hopping. Doesn’t care that the NFL desperately wants him, or about his current boss’ sophomoric spite.
He cares about his word and commitment.
Mississippi offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. watches his team during warm ups prior to their 2024 game against Georgia Southern at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
In the rapidly-evolving era of get yours — from coaches and players and university presidents — Weis is standing in the middle of it all and giving his. To his boss and his players, without fear of consequence.
In the last two months alone, Weis, 32, made three moves that should have every university president and NFL owner thinking seriously about making the big hire before it’s too late.
In December, days after Lane Kiffin left his job at Ole Miss for LSU — after Kiffin told his Ole Miss assistants if they wanted to keep their job, they’d get on a plane with him to Baton Rouge — Weis walked into Kiffin’s office and told him he couldn’t take it anymore.
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He simply couldn’t walk away from the players he developed and coached into the rare position of competing for a national championship in the College Football Playoff. He felt so strongly about it, felt so loyal to the players, that he was willing to risk his job at LSU to return to Ole Miss and coach those players in the CFP while also spending his time working for LSU.
Not long after Ole Miss’ magical run in the CFP, where Weis’ offensive ingenuity and play-calling skills were showcased — and it was clear that Weis, not Kiffin (as Kiffin has said many times), was the primary play-caller of the most creative offense in college football — new Rebels coach Pete Golding made a push for Weis’ permanent return to Ole Miss.
They’d buy out his LSU contract. They’d do what it took to bring him back into the fold.
Weis told Golding he’d already made a commitment to Kiffin and LSU, and wasn’t going back on it. No matter how much money Ole Miss threw at him.
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Not long after that, after the Philadelphia Eagles were bounced in the first round of the NFL playoffs, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni offered Weis the offensive coordinator/play-caller job. He’d work at the highest level of football, and work with a dynamic Eagles offense that arguably has the best collection of skill talent in the league.
The Eagles, like Ole Miss, would pay him what he wanted. But Weis told Sirianni he made a commitment to LSU and Kiffin, and wasn’t going back on it.
You want the next big thing in college football? Here’s your man.
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Years ago, when Weis first officially worked for Kiffin as a 24-year-old at Florida Atlantic, I spoke with legendary NFL personnel man Gil Brandt — the iconic NFL general manager who built the Dallas Cowboys into America’s Team.
Brandt met Weis at Florida in 2011, where he was an 18-year-old student as his dad, Charlie Weis Sr., was offensive coordinator for the Gators under then-coach Will Muschamp. They sat down for nearly 90 minutes and talked ball on a brisk spring day, analyzing everything from coverages and fronts, to passing and run-game concepts, to organizational planning and growth.
All of it, from soup to nuts.
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“So Charlie Jr. leaves, and his dad walks in and asks me, ‘So what did you think of him?’” Brandt told me in 2018. “I told (Charlie Sr.) that I’ve met two people in my life where I knew, without a doubt, he would be a successful coach. One was Bill Belichick. Then (Charlie Sr.) asks me, ‘Who was the other?’ I said he just got up and walked away.”
Not long after that, Weis met Kiffin, then the Alabama offensive coordinator. Nick Saban needed an offensive analyst, and Eric Kiesau, another analyst on staff, told Saban and Kiffin about this young guy who would blow them away if they talked to him. Two years later, near the end of Kiffin’s run with the Tide, Kiffin admitted Weis had become such a factor with game-planing annd opponent evaluation, that he could predict Kiffin’s play calls.
The young coach with the photographic memory, who can recite play calls and down and distance situations from games and years past on demand, then left for a season to work as an offensive assistant with the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons. A year later, Kiffin got the Florida Atlantic job and hired Weis as his offensive coordinator.
And wouldn’t you know it ― to bring this story full circle ― then Falcons offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian offered to keep Weis with a position job in the NFL at 24 years old.
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But Weis stayed with Kiffin because he made the commitment. Just like he did with the Ole Miss players. Like he did with Kiffin again after Ole Miss tried to poach him back, and after the NFL came calling again.
Soon enough, when the right job comes along with the right president and athletic director — or NFL owner — Weis will finally accept his first head-coaching gig.
That’ll be the best story of all.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: LSU’s Charlie Weis is college football next big coaching thing
