Weis, Irish staff share info with Panthers
CHARLES CHANDLER
pyasinskas@charlotteobserver.com


Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis and his staff are in Charlotte this week to exchange information with Panthers coaches and to attend Carolina's minicamp.

Weis said after Wednesday morning's practice that he and close friend John Fox, the Panthers' coach, planned the time together several months ago.

"When you're coaching in college, you don't share with a college coach; and when you coach in the pros, you don't share with a pro coach," Weis said.

"This is an ideal situation. A lot of things we do and a lot of things they do are the same. ... It's a good marriage where we can try to solve some problems and share some information without passing it on to (another) NFL team or college team."

Fox and Weis have been getting together away from football with their families for years. Fox considered hiring Weis as the Panthers' offensive coordinator in 2002 before Weis decided to stay with the New England Patriots.

Weis helped Tom Brady become one of the NFL's best quarterbacks in New England, and has a new star protege in rising Irish senior Brady Quinn, the early favorite to be next year's No. 1 NFL draft pick.

"He's got all the tools," Weis said of Quinn. "We'll just see how he develops. He's pretty good right now. The reason he came back for another year (instead of turning pro) was to see if he can be seasoned one more year, make sure he's not a one-year wonder, then go on and have himself a nice (NFL) career."




Do college and pro football staffs get together for a week and share information? Maybe this happens a lot, but I have never seen it.

I guess Carolina wanted to pick up some offensive pointers from Weis and ND wanted to pick Fox's brains regarding defense.


There is a lot of familiarity between the two staffs.....

Weis worked with the Panthers OC, Dan Henning, when they were with the Jets.

ND defensive coordinator Rick Minter worked with the Panthers DC, Mike Trgovac, at ND and also Ball State.

I like the idea of Minter being able to sit down and break things down with Fox, who was one of the best defensive coordinators in the NFL before becoming a head coach.


Do Pitt coaches sit down with Cowher's staff, for instance? I just wondered if this was unusual or a common practice.

To what extent it goes on, I'm not sure, but there are been reports about Wannestedt and Cowher discussing football together. Interestingly enough, Wanny was beaten out for the Steelers job by Cowher.

But this is the whole ND staff spending a week with an NFL staff and attending Carolina's mini-camp.

That part seems new and unique to me. Is it?

I'd like to see the Bearcats and Bengals do that, but I haven't seen much to indicate the Bengals have even heard of UC.

I don't see it as all that unusual. I remember when John Robinson was the coach at USC back in the 90s. He kept in contact with his friends on the Rams' staff while they were still in LA. I imagine he wasn't the first to do that either.

Taking an entire coaching staff from Indiana to North Carolina for a week to swap ideas with an NFL staff and attend an NFL mini camp?

I just haven't seen that anywhere before....