What They're Saying About Charlie Weis To Kansas

There's going to be plenty of coverage (and already has been) on former Kansas City Chiefs OC Charlie Weis taking the head coaching job at the University of Kansas. Many of the media outlets that covered him with the Chiefs -- the KC Star, the local TV stations, 810 WHB, 610 Sports, etc. -- are now covering him with the Jayhawks.

There's plenty of talk about the move, which will be officially announced this evening at a 5:00 p.m. press conference, so I figured we'd take a look at what people are saying about the news.

We'll start with KU's initial statement that Weis was headed to Lawrence:

Kansas Athletics will introduce Charlie Weis, former New England Patriots offensive coordinator, former Notre Dame head coach and current offensive coordinator at the University of Florida, as its new football coach at a press conference tomorrow (Friday) afternoon. (Time TBA).

Interesting that one job is missing there -- the Chiefs. Assuming KU didn't simply rush this statement and forget the Chiefs, it's interesting that they made the decision not to include his second-to-last job in there. Why?

More reactions after the jump...

Chiefs GM Scott Pioli has issued statements to the Star and the (other) AP: "I'm very happy for Charlie and we wish him nothing but the best in his new endeavor as the head coach at Kansas."

This has to be weird for the Chiefs. He just left 11 months ago. There are a couple of ways to look at this. First, does Weis now coming to KU strengthen the arguments that he and Todd Haley didn't get along? That's the definitely the route some of the Chiefs-centric reactions are going. But another way to look at it: the Chiefs are simply the third of four stops for Weis in the last four years. He's a football version of a nomad. Maybe this is more or as much about Weis than it is Haley (though you can say the same about Haley and his annual OC search).

(Update: Tim Grunhard said on 810 WHB this morning that Weis' son, who was part of the original reason given for his departure from KC, will likely be at KU as well.)

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Kansas AD Sheahon Zenger: "At the end of the day," Zenger told The Star, "I would tell you, what Charlie Weis brings to Kansas is someone who is regarded as one of the brightest X's and O's minds in the country and a national profile that we've not had at this institution in football before."

Weis gives KU a big name at head coach, which is what they needed, I think. The college game is about recruiting and Weis had some solid classes early on at Notre Dame so there's potential.

(Side note: I'll never forget hearing the story about someone from my high school getting recruited by Weis to play at Notre Dame. He walks onto campus and sits down with Weis in his office, and Weis stretches his hand out -- with all his Super Bowl rings on. He committed to ND.)

This game is also about quarterbacks and, if I'm a 17-year old quarterback, I'm thinking long and hard about the guy who coached Tom Brady, Brady Quinn, Jimmy Clausen and Matt Cassel (the 2010 version). Those guys all had a lot of success under Weis, you can't ignore that.

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Kent Babb of the KC Star had this tweet that sums up my feeling on the hire: "For where KU football is now, Zenger hit a home run. He might be KU's Huggins, here and gone, but he knows his way around a football field."

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Sam Mellinger, KC Star: "This is what desperation looks like." .... "Weis will try to sell this as his second chance to run a college football program, while most people with even short-term memory can see him as a failed head coach with a list of health problems now taking a fourth job in four years."

As much as I think Weis is a good hire, there are plenty of other reasons why it's not. Check out Sam's piece for some of those reasons.

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Bud Elliott, SB Nation: "Charlie Weis' timing was really quite poor for the Florida Gators. After a poor offensive showing in his only year with Florida, Weis abruptly quit and took the Kansas head coaching job. And he did so less than 36 hours before Florida was set to host one of, it notthe biggest recruiting weekends it will have in the 2011-2012 recruiting cycle."

It's interesting to look at his departure from KC and now his departure from Florida -- both came at poor times. For the Chiefs, that came directly after the final regular season game and a week before the playoff game. For the Gators, that came before one of the biggest recruiting weekends of the year.