It’s about the coaches. It’s the compelling storyline. There’s no sense in pretending otherwise.

Weis said he had declined overtures from ABC Sports to tape ”drop-ins” — brief bits of canned insight and information — for use during its telecast of the Irish-Pittsburgh season opener Saturday (7 p.m., Ch. 7, 890-AM).

“I told them, ‘Why don’t you go to the players?'” Weis said Tuesday. “‘Why don’t you go get Brady Quinn on tape? Why don’t you get Brandon Hoyte?'”

On the other side of Youngstown, first-year Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt had a different take on the request: “Why not? That sort of stuff is great for promoting your program, whoever they want to use.”

The note piece doesn’t say whether they did use ND players or not.

Once the game starts, then it is something else:

“This game is between players, not between coaches,” Weis said. “I think a lot of times the fanfare and the attention goes toward the coaches — but in reality it comes down to which team executes the best.”

For Weis, Saturday’s game will be the first true referendum on how well his team has absorbed the changes he and his staff have implemented, everything from a new offensive system to a fresh defensive lineup that includes just three returning starters.
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Personnel, Wannstedt said, would be the key. When he was the Bears head coach, Wannstedt couldn’t get his teams past Mike Holmgren’s Packers, compiling a 1-11 record in six seasons. In his first game as head coach of the Dolphins in 2000, he went against Holmgren’s Seahawks.

“We beat them 23-0, intercept them six times,” Wannstedt said. “Mike is shaking my hand after the game, and he says, ‘God those plays didn’t look the same as they did when [Packers quarterback] Brett Favre was running them, did they?'”

Hey, have you heard that both coaches were in the NFL? Yeah, I managed to miss that factoid too. That startling piece of information led the P-G to run a timely story on pro-level coaches coming back to college. Cutting edge. Hasn’t been beaten into the ground around the country for the last couple of years. I mean, there have been some small stories out there regarding someone named Pete Carroll. Here and there stuff on Al Groh, Chan Gailey, Mike Shula,Sylvesterr Croom and so on — occasionally. No one ever mentions poor Rich Brooks at Kentucky, though. Same with Ron Zook. Why is that?

When Wannstedt and Weis are out recruiting, though, they like to use props.

Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis likes to flash his 2004 Super Bowl ring when chatting up high school recruits.

Since returning to his alma mater, Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt has worn two rings that are much older, but also are testaments to devotion.

“My wedding ring and my Pitt national championship ring,” Wannstedt said, smiling.
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“I use the ring more for recruiting,” Weis said. “Everyone knows that when a kid is trying to decide among Division I programs, one of (his) aspirations is to play in the NFL. The ring is a symbol of being at the height of the NFL.”

Weis has not bothered to show the current Fighting Irish players his jewelry collection. He prefers to express that message to them verbally.

“It’s not the ring itself and the bling-bling,” Weis said. “It’s what it stands for.”

Wannstedt said that if he did not have a Pitt ring, he probably would wear his Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl ring or University of Miami national championship ring.

“It means, hey, you’ve been there,” Wannstedt said. “You’ve been the very best at what you do in your profession. There’s not many people in any profession — there’s not many coaches, at any level — that have been the very best at what they do. It’s something that adds credibility to what you’re doing.”

I’ll give Weis credit for a solidly crafted, self-effacing, one liner regarding rings and recruiting.

“I wear them any time recruiting is possible,” Weis said. “Every one of the kids you’re recruiting to a Division I school aspires to play on Sunday. So when you sit there and flash a ring on them, they’re not looking at your face, they’re looking at your hand.

“Like I tell my wife, if I can get them to look at my hand instead my face, I got a chance.”

For Charlie Weis, unplugged here’s his press conference from yesterday.

Q. What significance or importance do you put on the fact that you have two passionate head coaches going back to their alma maters and playing each other in the first game against each other on such a stage?

COACH WEIS: I think Dave (Wannstedt) would say the same thing that I would say, is that this game is between players, not between coaches. I think a lot of times the fanfare and the attention goes toward the coaches and the coaching staff, but in reality it comes down to which team executes the better, the best.

Both teams are going to be well prepared. I don’t think that’s going to be the issue, then comes down to who executes the best. Like I said before, I have a lot of respect for Dave and his entire staff. I don’t think this should be about Dave and I. I think it should be about University of Pittsburgh versus University of Notre Dame.
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Q. You mentioned Dave Wannstedt as a defensive guru, and you’ve been called an offensive guru. Describe how your styles go against each either as pertains to Saturday?

COACH WEIS: Dave is a really good coach, and remember, it’s not just Dave, they have Rhoads there who is a good coordinator who he kept. When he came in there, he kept Rhoads. I think that their philosophies are interesting because, you know, I know Dave; Dave knows me. Now, that doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to end up happening, but now you have to throw the other factors, the other factors that are involved: Who are the other players that are involved; and by players, I mean, the other coaches that have an influence on defensive game plans and offensive game plans. I think that this is going to come down to, I don’t think there’s going to be a trick game. This is going to come down to an execution game.

Finally, a puff piece on Coach Wannstedt from the Chicago Sun-Times (warning, Beano Cook quotes in the story).

“Right now, the immediate goal is just to get off the bus Saturday night and get going,” said Wannstedt, Pitt Class of ’74, master’s of education, 1976. “But I hope that one day that night is looked back upon as the night that the University of Pittsburgh began its climb back to being a team consistently ranked nationally in the top 10 and beyond.”

Soon, or at least for a Saturday night, it will be all about the game, the teams and the players — not the coaches.