Effects of Weis’ firing could trickle down to UH football

When Kansas fired its football coach, Charlie Weis, Sunday, it wasn’t long before the concern was felt 4,000 miles away in Manoa.

Not that the University of Hawaii was a big fan of Weis, whose then-Notre Dame team administered a 49-21 thrashing to the Rainbow Warriors in the 2008 Hawaii Bowl. Nor are they shedding tears for a man who is collecting multi-million dollar buyouts from both Notre Dame and Kansas.

It is just that Weis’ forced departure gives the Jayhawks ample reason to rethink their place on the Rainbow Warriors’ future schedules.

And, that’s cause for concern at UH where, just days ago, there had been high fives for the advances made in nearly completing their 2015-2019 scheduling lineup.

A component of that has had UH scheduled to go to Lawrence, Kan., in 2016 and the Jayhawks returning the favor, opening the 2017 season in Aloha Stadium. They are games that would not have been booked without Weis imploring KU to call UH soon after he landed in Lawrence. 

When Weis told KU administrators he wanted a home-and-home series with UH their first response was "(they) thought I was kidding," Weis said at the time. Adamantly, he said he maintained, "’I’m not kidding!’" and the deal got done.

Weis enjoyed the Irish’s bowl appearance here and relished even more plucking some quality recruits, including Manti Te’o, Robby Toma an Kona Schwenke, out of Hawaii.

Part of the grand plan at Kansas was to return here and siphon off some more talent to help rebuild the downtrodden Jayhawk fortunes. Offering prospective recruits a chance to play UH twice and get a return home was part of the sales pitch.

He got one player, Saint Louis School linebacker Colton Goeas, right off the bat and had been in the hunt for more when the plug was pulled.

Because Weis wanted the games so badly, UH was able to book the Jayhawks at the bargain rate of $250,000, an especially good deal for a team from a Power Five conference.  

Now, depending upon who is hired as Weis’ replacement and what his scheduling and recruiting blueprints are, the ‘Bows could be left scrambling to fill one or both slots.

The $500,000 buyout provision in the contract is hardly a hurdle if the Jayhawks want out. After all, they have the wherewithal to pay off the remainder of Weis’ contract at a reported $5.6 million.

But it would be a significant loss for UH which is increasingly finding itself hard pressed to get teams from the Power Five conferences to sign up for games here. The Jayhawks are the only Big 12 team currently on UH’s schedule through 2024 and, along with Colorado, the only Power Five representatives booked here between 2015 and 2018. 

The dearth of available opponents at affordable prices is one reason why UH signed on earlier this year to play Saturday’s nonconference game at Rice.

UH will miss the colorful Weis, but losing the games he booked would hurt a lot more.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.