And other fun, from his press conference:
Q. My point exactly. Can you feel the excitement starting to build around campus for this weekend?
COACH WEIS: I haven’t been on campus, Pete, so I can’t really tell you, but I think all the feedback that I’m getting is everyone is really excited for this game. As well they should be.
You know, my goal is for them to be excited at seven, not to be excited now. Seven on Saturday I’m talking about, not seven on Thursday morning. Or what is this, Tuesday morning.
And we know why:
Q. That is my question. I mean, could you tell us how many hours of sleep a night you have been getting?
COACH WEIS: I get enough. I get my four hours in. You know, but see that’s not that unusual for football season. It’s 4 or 5 hours, that’s usually what it is. You know, get home late, you want to spend a little time saying hello to your wife and go to sleep and get up early. That’s just what you do. That’s what we do.
Also interesting is that recruiting analyst Tom Lemming is healthy:
Q. Can you update us on some of the injuries, Aldridge, Jimmy, Armando where those guys are, Lemming too?
COACH WEIS: Everyone’s ago. As a matter of fact, in warm-ups today you’ll even see Floyd out there in a uniform today. He won’t be playing; I’m not going to do that for window dressing, but he’s getting — he looks like he might be ahead of schedule and looks like come November we might — there is a chance we might get him back and playing again. But he can go out there, can’t catch balls but he can run around today.
But, you know, Jimmy’s Jimmy, you know. Turf toe is better but he’ll have it till after the season’s over. Lemming’s back. Aldridge is back. They’re all back.
Note also that reporters don’t know what the word ‘facetious’ means, and that Charlie is back-tracking on “Grass Gate” 2005:
Q. Not to be facetious, but do you think you are past the point of growing the grass out? So much was made of that in ’05.
COACH WEIS: Yeah, the grass was kind of long that way but some of the weather had to do with that, too. You know, I mean, remember one of the problems we have here is that as the year goes on when you get into October and November the grass doesn’t grow back as much here.
When you have a lot of home games in a row — I mean, we play USC then we play Boston College, then we go away for a week and come back and play Navy. You know, if you cut it razor thin at this time of year, you could end up ruining your field for the whole year; That’s really the whole thought process.
It was kind of long that day, but, you know, both teams were playing on it. That wasn’t the — the intent wasn’t to create an unfair advantage.
Weis also takes a pretty blunt approach when reporters ask about comparing Jimmy as a frosh to Barkley as a frosh. He’s right, but he’s pretty brutally honest as well. And apparently Charlie knows ‘PC’ like reporters know ‘facetious’:
Q. How different he is from Jimmy when he was a freshman?
COACH WEIS: I think that Jimmy wasn’t around as much as good a supporting cast. That might be the biggest understatement I might ever say, (Laughter) but I’m trying to be politically correct. You know, I think that Matt is playing behind a seasoned offensive line with good skill people, but he’s not just managing the game, You know, he’s making plays, too.
You know the easiest thing to say is just go in there and just manage the game, but he’s making plays. I have a lot of respect for him.
Some USC fans are d-bags, and Charlie does take some things personally:
Q. I read today that you have a cap on in your office that says “USC Owns Notre Dame”. I was wondering where you got that and why you keep it out there?
COACH WEIS: I do have that cap but I keep it for a different season, Tom, which is kind of private. But with that cap came a letter from somebody with a very derogatory comment towards my daughter. So until we win a game, I’ll hold on to that cap. And when we’ve won a game, that cap won’t around any more. It’s kind of a refresher for me and I’d just rather than share the derogatory comment I’d like to just keep that private.
For an ‘egomaniac’, Charlie sure doesn’t like to talk about his own feelings/thoughts/perspectives/needs (oh, and Bad Kermit and all ND haters will LOVE this question):
Q. If you could describe how hungry you are?
COACH WEIS: I think that our university really, really could use this win. Not me personally, our football team, our university. We don’t just play for us. We play for them, too. It’s been a long time coming. And we know the challenge we have at hand, George, we’re not oblivious to that fact, but been a long time coming and we’re going to give it a fair go.
Charlie is also a liar:
Q. Will you be wearing green jersey Saturday?
COACH WEIS: No, we’ll be wearing blue jerseys on Saturday.
And also sometimes righteously snarky (this reporter deserved it):
Q. To follow-up on the answer you gave to Pete, you said your players believe they’re going to win. Why do you believe they’re going to win?
COACH WEIS: Well, it goes back to the question that Tim asked awhile ago. You know, last year I thought the defense hung in there for awhile and the offense was just taking a whooping. And I’m not expecting to be taking a whooping.
Q. You’ve seen that much improvement in your offensive line?
COACH WEIS: You been at the games?
Bold is mine.
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