Well, it’s not quite “spygate,” as we know it, but apparently Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis has some explaining to do after a laptop was seen in the coaches box at their game in East Lansing, Mich. against Michigan State on Saturday.
NCAA rules state coaches are not allowed to use a working laptop during the game, for any reason. In the coaches box, Weis said that the laptop was being used by a student manager just to input down and distance, to help ease the post-game work.
Anyway, the NCAA apparently has requested a “report” from Weis.
Obvioiusly, this sounds like a small matter (see Weis’ comments below), but it is interesting that it is an ex-Pats assistant being questioned.
Here are two questions on the issue during his press conference yesterday:
Q. The whole thing about the laptop, do you expect to hear anymore about that, and did you find out more about exactly what happened there?
COACH CHARLIE WEIS: “Because I had to do the due diligence on this one last night. You know, when we go on the road, what we do is a student manager is assigned to just, from a defensive staff standpoint, because it’s not on the offensive staff, okay, is assigned to type in on a laptop the down and distance in the defense. So when we come back here they can give it to Tim Collins, and when they’re dubbing the tape for the next morning, it will just — it just reads across, 1st and 10, under, bare. Whatever it is.
Now, you’re allowed to do that. But the one area where you’re not allowed to do that is in a coaching area. It wasn’t a coach doing it, but it was a student manager.
But their press box is a 3-tiered one where the main coaches sat on the first tier and GAs and those guys sat on the second tier, then there was a third tier.
So we had a guy up there that was putting in the down and distance and the name of the defense so when we came back he wouldn’t have to stay up until 3:00 in the morning punching the stuff in.
To be honest with you, if he were sitting next to you in the press box, that’s perfectly legal for him to do the exact same thing. So if we were at fault, it was for the fact that he was at the top of the three tiers doing exactly that.”
Q. Do you respond — a delay — do you report to NCAA?
COACH CHARLIE WEIS: “I’ll say it to whoever. But I told them yesterday the same thing I’m telling you. Because at first, when an official came over to me, I said we’re doing what? So I was talking to Haywood at the time on the headset. I said: Have you got a laptop up there? He goes no. I said to the guy who came over across the field, I said: We don’t have a laptop.
Three minutes later I’m still talking to Haywood. Haywood said, hey, one of the student managers up top has a laptop. I said tell him to take the laptop and put it underneath his desk. Which he did. And he cooperated with anything that happened right there.
What I did, when I was walking off at halftime, I grabbed one of their coaches, I don’t know which one, but I grabbed one of their coaches to tell them exactly what I’m telling you so that he knew exactly what I was telling you, because as I said, after the game, I was unaware that the student manager was inside the press box doing that, inside the coaching box doing that instead of outside the coach’s box doing that.”
