It’s not like you couldn’t see it coming. Yesterday’s bombshell news that Charlie Weis was leaving his post as the offensive coordinator at Florida to take over the Kansas football program led to me openly hypothesizing about quarterback Dayne Crist joining him in Lawrence. (I even tweeted it 18 hours ago.) Well, just minutes ago Pete Thamel of the New York Times reported that Crist will leave tomorrow for an official visit to Kansas, where he’ll consider reuniting with the coach that brought him to Notre Dame.
The ties to the Kansas quarterbacking job and Notre Dame are all too unique. For Crist, rejoining Weis could lead to the renaissance he’ll need to resurrect any professional aspirations he had. It’ll also put him back in a pro-style offense that’ll fit the fifth-year senior’s skillset, playing in a system he spent two years learning. But before he makes the decision to head to the Jayhawks, he’d be well served to discuss the move with one of his current coaches, offensive line coach Ed Warinner. It was Warinner that led the charge recruiting current Jayhawk starting quarterback Jordan Webb. (Warinner will also likely know just about all of the veteran offensive personnel for the Jayhawks, giving Crist an idea of just what he’ll be walking into.) If Crist is going to play at Kansas, he’ll need to beat out a quarterback that started all 12 games this season and seven during his redshirt freshman season. At six-foot, 195-pound, Webb doesn’t profile as a prototype Charlie Weis quarterback, but he’s got a lot of experience and is one of the team’s leaders.
Even before a coaching change was in the works, competition at the quarterback position was a given. Then offensive coordinator Chuck Long told the Kansas City Star that spring practice would be dedicated to building depth, with redshirt freshman Michael Cummings, entering the fray and two high school commitments, Seth Russell and Bilal Marshall committed to the Jayhawks. Russell is a lanky 6-foot-4 Texas product with an offer to Wake Forest his only other BCS option, while Marshall looks a little bit more impressive, with the dual-threat Florida prospect sporting a handful of impressive offers including Georgia Tech, Virginia, Northwestern, Baylor and Boston College among others. Weis honored the commitments of Ty Willingham’s recruits when he took over at Notre Dame, so you’d expect him to do the same at Kansas, especially this late in the recruiting game.
Of course, bringing in Crist could also lead Weis down the wrong path. One of the pitfalls Weis ran into at Notre Dame was failing to develop depth in his first two seasons in South Bend, and bringing in a one-year quarterback like Crist could be more of the same for the former Irish coach. Turner Gill only won one game in the Big 12 in his two seasons at Kansas, so the “win now” attitude that was needed in South Bend doesn’t likely apply to the demands of Jayhawk football fans. (They leave that to Bill Self’s basketball team.) Does a stop-gap quarterback send the right message to a team that likely needs to be rebuilt from the ground up? His second time around, will Charlie learn from mistakes he made at Notre Dame and develop the youth on a roster that’ll likely need to be fully restocked?
On a day when the Irish lost their offensive coordinator to UMass, the college football world was abuzz with Weis’ sudden departure from Florida, where he was the highest paid offensive coordinator in the country and had his son working in the football program. Say what you want about Weis -- and yesterday, far too many media members resurrected tired pot shots and half-decade old grudges -- but the man can develop quarterbacks and run an offensive (even if Florida fans didn’t see it in his only season in Gainesville).
If Crist does decide to head to Kansas to finish his career, it’ll be a walk down memory lane for Irish fans. It’ll be bizarre seeing Weis and Crist wearing Jayhawk blue and red, but it’ll also be fun to see Dayne finally get the chance to play in the offense he was recruited to run.