Citing a Peter King price quote of an alleged $21 million buyout tag for an NFL team to hire away Notre Dame’s Charlie Weis, the New York Times’ Pete Thamel muses, “that was last year, so it™s likely gone down slightly. And no one is sure if the buyout is different for firing than hiring.”  Quick to pile on, the Chicago Tribune’s Teddy Greenstein finds one high school coach who complains of “a level of conceit he never had seen.”

When Jeanette H.S. Coach Ray Reitz told Weis in 2007 that Terrelle Pryor might attend a USC quarterbacks camp, he remembers Weis replying: “Why send him there? If he’s with me for one day he’ll be good, two days he’ll be great and three days he’ll be incredible.”

Later, unprompted, Weis asked the Jeannette coaches if they wanted to take a picture of his Super Bowl ring. “I did it, just to be polite, and then gave [the picture] to one of the kids,” Reitz recalled.

If Weis were arrogant, foul-mouthed and winning, few Notre Dame alums would grumble.

But his record is 27-19. Gerry Faust went 25-20-1 through 46 games against tougher opponents.

“And at least he was a good guy,” one alum noted.

When Weis visited Pryor’s school in 2007, Reitz recalled, he said that if Pryor couldn’t cut it at quarterback, “we’ll use him on the outside.”

No other school introduced the idea that Pryor might play receiver.

“Here’s the best part,” Reitz recalled. “He says to Terrelle: ‘Call me tomorrow at 6. I’ll be watching where Brady Quinn gets drafted.’ “