How a 28-year-old Chris Weinke became one of the most unlikely Heisman winners ever

THE JOKES ARE easy enough to make between "old man" Haynes King and his position coach, the oldest man to ever win the Heisman Trophy.

Twenty-five years ago, when Chris Weinke took home the award as a 28-year-old senior, his age became a nonstop topic of conversation. Today, older quarterbacks dot the college football landscape, their advanced ages met with a collective shrug.

"Sometimes I try and mess with him and say, 'I couldn't quite catch you on the age, but I tried. I gave it my all," the 24-year-old King said of Weinke, his quarterbacks coach at Georgia Tech.

Older players have been normalized, thanks to the transfer portal and the pandemic, which granted freshmen an extra year of eligibility if they wanted it. Nearly 40 quarterbacks from the 2020 class came back this year for one more season at the FBS level. Plus, with NIL and revenue sharing, some quarterbacks are opting to stay in college as opposed to leaving school for the NFL draft. And sixth-year quarterbacks like King and Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia entered the Heisman conversation this year. (Pavia was named a finalist.) Still, if more quarterbacks are 24 years old these days, nobody is quite as aged as Weinke was when he played.

"The landscape of college football has obviously changed," Weinke says. "But that was a point of contention when I won it. When I walked into the room that evening when they were making the Heisman announcement, I didn't think I was going to win it, because there was so much chatter that I didn't deserve to win it because I was older.

"But I've got it now, and they can't take it away."

Perhaps the conversation around what Weinke did in 2000 at Florida State should be reframed. What made that season so remarkable had nothing to do with age, and everything to do with how he turned himself into a star after his college football career nearly ended. Twice.

FLORIDA STATE OFFENSIVE coordinator Mark Richt was sitting in his office in 1996, when then-coach Bobby Bowden came in with some news. At the time, Richt was closing in on getting a commitment from the top quarterback prospect in the country, Drew Henson. That is, until Bowden told him about a promise he had made to Weinke six years earlier.

Weinke had initially signed with the Seminoles in 1990, joining a quarterback room that included Brad Johnson, Casey Weldon and fellow freshman Charlie Ward. But he also had a lucrative offer to play baseball with the Toronto Blue Jays organization, after being selected in the second round of the MLB draft. Weinke had until classes started in late August to decide which sport he was going to play, so he opted to begin fall practice with Florida State while weighing his options.

He went through fall two-a-days, and with decision day closing in, Richt remembers one quarterback meeting in particular. To make sure his quarterbacks understood what he was teaching them, he would ask them questions.

Richt turned to Weinke as they watched tape and asked, "What coverage is this on this play?"

"Cover 3?" Weinke guessed.

"No."

"Cover 1?

"No. It's quarters coverage," Richt said.

Weinke responded: "Whatever."

"That was the day before school started," Richt said. "I said, 'I got a feeling this kid is going to leave and play pro baseball.'"

Sure enough, Weinke left. But Bowden told him if he ever decided to return to football, he would have a spot waiting for him at Florida State.

After six years of bouncing around the minor leagues and getting as high as Triple-A, Weinke decided to give up on baseball, but not playing sports entirely. He wanted to go back to football. Richt reminded Bowden that if they took Weinke, they would lose Henson.

"Well, I promised him if ever wanted to play football again, I'd let him come back," Bowden told Richt.

Richt asked to speak with Weinke first.

"I was telling him all the rules and regs, I was telling him about [quarterback] Dan Kendra already on campus and when I'm done giving him my spiel to try to get him not to come, he says, 'Hey coach, let me ask you one question. If I'm the best guy, will I play?' I said, 'Of course.' He goes, 'I'm coming.' We lost the other quarterback to Michigan. I guess we came out OK with Weinke."

Nobody quite knew what to expect when he arrived on campus as a 25-year-old freshman in 1997, but he quickly became one of the guys, in part because he had a large house off campus and threw his fair share of parties where all were invited.

The larger issue was that he arrived as a baseball player. Weinke had not picked up a football in six years.

Getting his form back would take time and reps. Lots and lots of reps. Former teammates and coaches described Weinke's competitiveness, work ethic and relentless demeanor as driving forces. He would never settle for anything less than his best effort; and he expected the same from his teammates.

That is why he woke up before class started and went to watch tape with Richt. Why he organized every voluntary 7-on-7 workout and essentially made them mandatory. Because if someone failed to show up, he would go and find them and bring them out to the practice field. He developed such a great rapport with his receivers that he would be able to anticipate where they would be at any given time on the field.

"Our chemistry was like none other," said Marvin "Snoop" Minnis, his leading receiver in 2000. "He knew what I was going to do before I did. He would have the ball to me before I even got out of my break, and as a receiver, you love that so you can react and make the move you need to make on the defender."

Weinke played sparingly in 1997 but won the starting job in 1998. Things started well enough in the opener. Then in his second career start, at NC State, Weinke threw a school-record six interceptions, and the criticism began.

"I remember getting back to the house, we had an answering machine back then. The most brutal messages you could imagine, cursing and threats, and 'You don't need to play quarterback,'" said Jeff Purinton, who was working in the Florida State media relations department at the time and was one of Weinke's roommates. "Even going to the store, people would talk trash. Chris just weathered it and used that as an opportunity to learn."

Weinke rebounded from there, helping Florida State reel off eight straight wins. That last win, against Virginia, was nearly the last time he saw the field.

TOWARD THE END of the first half, Weinke got sacked and felt pain in his right arm. He initially thought he had a shoulder injury. Weinke went into the locker room at halftime, and as trainers began to lift off his shoulder pads, he had a sharp pain in his neck. He was fitted with a brace and underwent further testing.

When the doctor walked in to deliver the results, Weinke remembers asking, "Before you share any news, I just want to know one thing. Am I ever going to play college football again?"

"Well," the doctor said. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"

The doctor said Weinke needed surgery to insert a titanium plate into his neck after X-rays showed a chipped bone lodged against a nerve in a vertebra, ligament damage and a ruptured disc.

"Maybe the better news," the doctor said. "You were a centimeter away from being paralyzed from the neck down."

"Mom hears that, and dad hears that. They're not real excited about me getting back out on the field," Weinke says. "But they knew that burning desire inside of me that wanted to get back out there and be a part of the team. The doctors told me that I'd be stronger with a titanium plate in my neck, so I was going to do whatever it took. But those were probably the hardest seven months of my life."

Weinke initially had complications post-surgery and had to be in bed for five weeks. He lost 30 pounds, and his throwing arm atrophied so severely that it became impossible for him to even lift a football. He had to teach himself again how to throw, starting first with a tennis ball. Throwing it 5 yards was a huge accomplishment. Seven hours a day, day after day, he rehabbed, steadily progressing, all the while unsure whether he would make it all the way back.

Then, there he was in the season opener against Louisiana Tech, completing 63% of his passes, throwing for 242 yards and two touchdowns. That was the start of an undefeated national championship-winning season in 1999, as Florida State went wire to wire as the No. 1 team in the nation.

Weinke opted to return for one more season, because he wanted to get Bowden another national championship. After throwing for 3,432 yards, 29 touchdowns and 15 interceptions as a junior and winning the title, Weinke became one of the Heisman front-runners headed into 2000.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER, there is one play from that season that remains a part of Seminoles lore: Weinke to Minnis, 98 yards, in a 54-7 blowout win over Clemson in mid-November.

On the second series of the game, backed up near the goal line, Florida State ran what Bowden referred to as a "gym play" -- one that was never practiced on the field, but rather behind closed doors inside the gym away from prying eyes. "Or spies," Richt said.

Weinke dropped back deep into the end zone and faked a handoff to Jeff Chaney, turning his back to the defense and tucking the ball as if he no longer had it. Minnis had gone in motion and made the safety think he was blocking for a handoff, then took off down the middle. By the time Weinke delivered the ball, Minnis was wide open. Easy touchdown. Easy 54-7 win.

"He was so ice cold in that moment," Minnis said. "The confidence that he had in the O-line to just stand there, then turn around and hit me for the touchdown. For him to make that fake as beautiful as he did and then put that ball on a dime just tells you how great Chris Weinke was and how deserving he was of that Heisman Trophy."

There was another game that added to his legend: The regular-season final against the rival Gators. Weinke had missed the 1998 game in Gainesville because of his neck injury. Nothing would keep him from playing them in The Swamp in 2000. Not even the flu.

Weinke was so sick the night before the game, he stayed at the home of team doctor Kris Stowers so he would not be around the rest of the team in the team hotel. He rode with Stowers to the game on Saturday, and walked through all the tailgate lots on the way to the locker room. Trainers gave him an IV before the game started, and Weinke proceeded to throw for 353 yards and three touchdowns in the 30-7 win.

Florida State was well positioned to make it back to the national title game, and Weinke was also well positioned in the Heisman Trophy race. But as the weeks drew closer to the announcement of the Heisman finalists, critics waged a campaign against Weinke -- saying his age should disqualify him from consideration. That angered his teammates.

"He dominated that year, and it had nothing to do with age," Minnis said. Added running back Travis Minor: "When he got there, he wasn't looking like a Heisman Trophy candidate or winner. He really put the work in. You saw the difference from when he first got there to when he had that Heisman Trophy season. He earned everything that he won."

Florida State knew it had to start working on messaging with Heisman voters as the debate over his age raged on. Ultimately, school officials came back to one main point: It was hard to argue with the stats. Weinke had led the nation with 4,167 yards passing and 33 touchdowns and had the Seminoles playing in a third straight national championship game.

"He was playing baseball for six years. It wasn't like he was throwing the football every day and training to be a starting college quarterback," Purinton said. "The other part is he could have died when he broke his neck. There were two points in time where he had to go back and start football over again."

Weinke said the narrative taking shape around his age "pissed me off."

"I was playing college football, so if I'm playing college football, then I should be eligible to win any award that they're giving out in college football," Weinke said. "That was just a little motivating factor for me."

Weinke ultimately made it to New York with fellow finalists Josh Heupel, LaDainian Tomlinson and Drew Brees. His teammates watched on television screens from the team banquet Florida State had scheduled for that night.

"Sitting in the Downtown Athletic Club coming out of a commercial break and them announcing your name will ring in my head till the day I die," Weinke said.

Weinke beat out Heupel in one of the closest votes in Heisman history, taking a 76-point margin of victory. His teammates whooped and hollered for him back home. Weinke took the stage and said, "With apologies to Lou Gehrig, I feel like I'm the luckiest man in the world."

WEINKE BEGAN COACHING 10 years after he won the Heisman. He first came to know King while working as an assistant at Tennessee in 2020. When King hit the portal in 2022, Weinke had moved on to Georgia Tech. His first call was to King.

"Playing quarterback is kind of tricky," King says. "The stars have to align, whether it's people around you and or how you're playing. Even in my class, there were guys like Bryce Young and Anthony Richardson and C.J. Stroud, already in the league, and I'm still in college like Chandler Morris, Diego Pavia, Carson Beck. Everybody's timeline is different."

While the debate over his age has been left to the dustbin of history, what Weinke did that year may never be replicated. In an era of sport and position specialization, quarterbacks rarely play multiple sports at elite levels -- let alone leave football behind for six years before coming back to it. In the 25 years since Weinke won the Heisman, Brandon Weeden at Oklahoma State is perhaps the only notable quarterback to play baseball and then stick around in college football into his late 20s.

"To go through the things that I went through was clearly the road less traveled," Weinke said. "Being an older guy and not playing football for seven years, then fulfilling a dream of playing for Coach Bowden, then breaking my neck, and coming back and giving Coach Bowden his first undefeated season, and ultimately having my name called for the Heisman Trophy, I just felt blessed."