Charlie Weis Jr. climbing the coaching ladder, lands job with Atlanta Falcons
The sight of Charlie Weis Jr., standing on the Notre Dame football sidelines as a teenager with a headset on drew plenty of snickers and head-shaking at the time.
His thick skin and early jump at the coaching profession is paying off now.
On Friday, the 24-year-old son of former ND head coach Charlie Weis (2005-09) was named as an offensive assistant for the Super Bowl runner-up Atlanta Falcons. New Falcons offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian wrestled him away from first-year Florida Atlantic head coach Lane Kiffin.
All three spent the 2016 season on Nick Saban’s staff at the University of Alabama in 2016 — Kiffin as offensive coordinator, Sarkisian as an offensive analyst promoted to offensive coordinator for the national title game, and Weis as a second-year offensive analyst for the Tide.
Kiffin took the younger Weis with him when he landed the FAU head coaching job. Weis was the tight ends coach for the Owls for roughly two months when Sarkisian hired him away.
"I think he's a really special coach," Kiffin told the Birmingham News said of Weis Jr., back in December. "Really intelligent. Kid is way ahead of his time. He was in college at Florida with (Will) Muschamp and his dad, and he's in there breaking down film and doing game plans as a college kid.
“He's way ahead of the game, high IQ and really intelligent. I thought it was really valuable to bring him."
Sarkisian, the former deposed USC head coach, was expected to stay at Alabama for the 2017 season, but Falcons coach Dan Quinn made him an offer when a vacancy arose on his staff after the Super Bowl.
The younger Weis attended South Bend Saint Joseph High during Weis Sr.’s coaching regime at ND, then finished his final year in the Kansas City area, when Charlie Weis Sr., moved there to serve as offensive coordinator for the Chiefs for one season (2010).
Weis Jr. attended college at the University of Florida, but followed his father to Kansas when the elder Weis landed the head coaching job at that school. Weis Jr. graduated from Kansas with a degree in psychology in 2015.
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