By By SCOTT NOVAK / Dowagiac Daily News
NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Late in the first half of Saturday's Michigan-Notre Dame football game, Fighting Irish coach Charlie Weis went down with a knee injury.
Weis was injured when his own player, John Ryan, was shoved toward the Notre Dame sideline by a Michigan player.
Despite the injury, Weis still had a sense of humor following the Fighting Irish's 35-17 victory over the Wolverines.
When asked if he would be listed as day-to-day or questionable, Weis responded "I'll show up as a coach, but I'll be gone for the year as a player. Tommy Brady's got nothing on me."
A replay of the incident drew a loud response from the press box crowd. From Weis' perspective, this is what happened:
"The play was already past me, so I'm very safe – because of my bad feet, I'm always safe on the sidelines," Weis recalled. "I always error on the side of caution. So the play was by me, but my vision went to the right and then one of their guys hit John Ryan, and I never saw it coming. I just knew as soon as I got hit.
"I'm layin' down there, and other than the fact that I knew my knee got blown out, you're sitting there, and they want you to pop back up and I said, 'Let's relax here for a second, fellas,' because I knew I wanted to regain my composure. You know when it gets blown out; it was blown out. You didn't have to guess."
The diagnosis is a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ALC) and a torn medial collateral ligament (MCL).
"MCL/ACL," answered Weis when asked what the injury was during the post season press conference. "How do you like that? I feel like an athlete. For the first time in my life!"