Imagine Calvin Johnson coming back to Bobby Dodd Stadium draped in North Carolina baby blue. Picture Joe Hamilton on the east sideline of Grant Field, guiding an opposing quarterback through a game plan to undo Georgia Tech.
That’s essentially where Yellow Jackets quarterbacks coach Chris Weinke is headed Saturday. In a week in which his coaching expertise is direly needed, Weinke also will make a trip into his storied past. The quarterback of Florida State’s 1999 national championship team and the Heisman Trophy winner a year later, Weinke will take Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium and, for the first time, stand with the visiting team.
“Obviously, over the four years that I was there, a lot of good memories, a lot of good friendships,” Weinke said Wednesday in a video teleconference with media.
While Weinke sought to downplay the occasion, it’s certainly momentous for Seminoles fans. It is not often that a former Heisman Trophy winner comes back to his school to coach against his former team. The late Pat Sullivan (as head coach at Samford coaching at Auburn) and Steve Spurrier (as head coach at South Carolina coaching at Florida and, actually, as quarterbacks coach at Tech in 1979) made the same homecoming, but the full list can’t be much longer.
Weinke said he has not spent much time recently in Tallahassee, Fla. He attended the funeral of coaching legend Bobby Bowden in August 2021 and has visited with Seminoles coach Mike Norvell.
“Obviously in this profession, there’s not a whole lot of free time,” he said. “Looking forward to getting back down there.”
Weinke retold the story of his recruitment to FSU when he was nearing the end of his professional baseball career in 1996. (Weinke was a high-profile recruit in football but was drafted in the second round by the Toronto Blue Jays and played six seasons in their minor-league system before retiring.) When he decided to forgo football, Weinke was promised by Bowden that his scholarship would be waiting for him if he decided to come back. Similarly, Weinke knew that if he ever chose that path, that he would want to play at FSU for Bowden and assistant coach Mark Richt.
Weinke chose a Clemson-Florida State game in October 1996 to visit the Seminoles. However, he found the welcoming less than receptive, as then-offensive coordinator Richt tried to talk him out of his plan. That same weekend, FSU was hosting prospect Drew Henson on an official visit, and Richt believed that he would commit.
Weinke said he asked Richt one question.
“I said, ‘If I’m the best guy, will I play?’” Weinke said. “He said, ‘We’re always going to play the best guy.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m coming back.’ He said, ‘Let’s go see coach Bowden and share the news with coach Bowden.’”
That was the start of Weinke’s historic career, one in which he compiled a record as a starter of 32-3 (including three wins over Tech) and rewrote pages of the school record book. He continues to hold several of them, including most passing yards (9,839), completions (650) and touchdown passes (79) in a career. Weinke won every game he played in at Doak Campbell, part of a 54-game unbeaten streak that lasted from 1992 to 2001. In 2001, he became the seventh FSU player to have his jersey retired. (Henson ultimately chose Michigan and coincidentally also tried to play professional baseball, ultimately briefly making it to the majors before retiring from baseball, switching to football and playing in a total of nine NFL games.)
Weinke’s success in college, followed by a seven-year NFL career, led the way to his coaching career, a path influenced by the impact that Richt and Bowden had had on him. Weinke said he still has the notebooks that he used when he sat in position meetings led by Richt.
The journey has brought Weinke to a pivotal moment. At 3-4, Tech is in dire need of a win to keep its bowl hopes alive with interim coach Brent Key. And, as things would have it, the quarterback that Weinke and the Jackets may depend on, Zach Gibson, grew up a Seminoles fan feeding on the lore of Weinke and other FSU greats. Gibson, whose father is an FSU grad, may make the start for the Jackets with starter Jeff Sims day to day with a sprained foot.
Speaking in August, Gibson said he wouldn’t go so far as to call Weinke his boyhood idol – Weinke’s days as a Seminole were long past when Gibson was old enough to watch football – but said he looked up to Weinke for how well he played the position.
It’s clear Gibson has watched the highlights. He mentioned, for instance, a defining play of Weinke’s career, a play-action pass against Clemson in 2000 that Weinke sold brilliantly before lofting a pass from the back of the end zone to Snoop Minnis for a 98-yard touchdown reception.
“Fast forward, 2022, I’m playing for him,” Gibson said. “Every day, I’m kind of still – I wouldn’t say starstruck – but it’s just like, ‘Man, he’s really my coach.’”
Weinke said there has not been much conversation between he and Gibson this week about going to Florida State beyond the task at hand.
“I think that takes place at different times,” he said.
If he and Gibson are able to somehow help the Jackets topple the Seminoles, who as of Thursday were 24.5-point favorites over Tech, they’ll have plenty to talk about.
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