The Deseret News has learned that Utah State's new football coach, to be presented at a news conference on Tuesday, will be University of Arkansas offensive coordinator and quarterback coach Charlie Weatherbie, 36, a former NFL and CFL quarterback and assistant coach at both Wyoming and Air Force.
Weatherbie received the news of his appointment in his Arkansas office by telephone from Utah State athletic director Rod Tueller Monday morning."They just told me I was the head coach. I'm excited and fired up and looking forward to it," Weatherbie told the Deseret News in a phone interview Monday.
He was being congratulated by Arkansas co-workers at the time.
Weatherbie said he favors a pro-look I-type offense that would combine attributes of Florida State and the Washington Redskins and would like to have a defense similar to that of the University of Miami, a 4-3 with a two-deep look.
He said he has coaches in mind for offensive and defensive coordinators and for assistant head coach, and he said it's possible he will consider current Utah State assistants for his staff.
From his conversations with Tueller and others at Utah State - he interviewed for the position Thursday in Logan - Weatherbie said he will probably begin recruiting for the Aggies on Wednesday, saying key needs are to find a couple of junior-college quarterbacks, some speed at wide receiver and a speedy linebacker.
Weatherbie, the Arkansas staff representative for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, says his coaching style is to "be involved, but I'm not a yeller and a screamer and a cusser. If I'm a yeller and a screamer, it's going to be a positive yelling and screaming, congratulating people and patting them on the tail and encouraging them." He says he's an enthusiastic person and hard worker who forms good relationships with his players. "We're going to have fun," he says.
Weatherbie is the son of a football coach who began coaching himself when he was still in junior high school, coaching grade-schoolers in basketball and football. "It's just kind of in my blood," he says.
He grew up in Fort Scott, Kan., and earned high-school all-state and all-America honors as a quarterback, then started three seasons at Oklahoma State University, where he engineered that school's last win over Oklahoma in 1976 and OSU's only Big Eight championship the same year. He played in the 1974 Fiesta Bowl and 1976 Tangerine Bowl.
Weatherbie's experience at Oklahoma State helped interest him in Utah State. "Utah State is very similar in the size of the town and the program," says Weatherbie, who says he figured Logan would be "a good place to raise a family."
Weatherbie has been married 15 years to Leann, and they have two sons, Lance, 13, and Jonas, 11. "They're very active and ornery," Weatherbie says of his boys, who play football, basketball and baseball. "They just love life."
He was a member of the Houston Oilers for one season after being a graduate-assistant coach at Oklahoma State for the 1977-78 season, left pro football to coach high school at Enid, Okla., then spent the 1978-79 season with the San Diego Chargers. The next season, he moved to the Canadian League, where he played for the Hamilton Tiger Cats, Ottawa Rough Riders and Edmonton Eskimos.
He says the professional playing experience may have helped him land the Utah State job. "I've been a leader for years," he says, adding that quarterbacks sometimes "take as much heat and pressure as a head coach. I've been through the battles," he says.
Weatherbie's first full-time college coaching experience was with Wyoming, where he coached quarterbacks and receivers from 1980-83. He spent six years as quarterback/fullback coach at Air Force, where he assisted in play-calling in that wishbone setup. He briefly took a job as quarterback coach at Arizona but wound up joining the Arkansas staff the same year, going to Fayetteville in January 1990.
He says he's been interested in becoming a head college coach for the past three to five years. "I was hunting for the right opportunity," he says.
Having coached at Wyoming and Air Force and recruited in the West, Weatherbie says, "I miss the mountains, to tell you the truth."
He says he feels comfortable recruiting in California, where the Aggies have concentrated efforts and gotten a number of players.
Weatherbie will replace Chuck Shelton, who resigned last month after six years with Utah State.
He was chosen from a field that included former Shelton assistant and BYU tight end Brian Billick, Arizona offensive coordinator Pat Hill and Oregon defensive coordinator Denny Schuler.