SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Charlie Weis laughs when he is described as an offensive guru.

The Notre Dame coach knows he's good at what he does. Three Super Bowl rings in four years are proof. He just doesn't believe the description fits. He doesn't see himself as an innovator as much as a plagiarizer, someone who has taken others' ideas and developed them into a complex offensive scheme.

He has a description for himself he prefers to guru, genius or even coach.

"I consider myself a teacher first," he said.

That's the way Notre Dame offensive coordinator Mike Haywood looks at Weis, too. That's why he left his job as running backs coach at Texas to return to his alma mater.

"I came here just to be a sponge and absorb information," he said.

Weis was able to build a veteran staff of coaches because of his reputation as a bold play caller. His staff includes three former college head coaches and a former offensive coordinator. Most of them say they took the job because they wanted to learn from Weis.

John Latina, Notre Dame's assistant head coach for offense and a college assistant since 1979, including five years as offensive coordinator at Ole Miss, said the biggest difference he sees between Weis and others for whom he has coached is a great instinct and the ability to explain why he is doing something.

"He teaches, 'This is why we're doing this,'" Latina said. "That's what teaching is. Not just telling what we're doing, but why we're doing it and why we have to do it a certain way."

Weis said he learned how to do what he does by working under Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick, or "the Bills," as he calls them.

"That's the only way I know," Weis said.

So how did a guy considered an offensive coach learn under two coaches generally considered defensive coaches? By taking what they do and switching it over to offense, such as game-planning around an opponent's weaknesses and making substantial changes in how a team looks week to week. Weis might load up heavily on pass plays one week, then depend on the run the next.

"So if they start practicing against what you did last week, you're not doing what you did last week," Weis said. "That's one of the biggest problems going against this mentality."

The mentality seems to be working quite well for the 12th-ranked Fighting Irish (4-1). They have improved from being among the nation's worst offensive teams during the past five seasons to being the ninth-rated offense in the country so far this season.

Notre Dame, which is off this weekend, is averaging 504 yards a game in total offense. That's 119 yards more per game than last year - which was the school's best offense in four years. The biggest improvement has come in the passing game, where the Irish are 11th in the nation, averaging 330 yards a game. The school record for a season is 253 yards a game in 1970 under Ara Parseghian.

Brady Quinn's pass efficiency rating has risen from 125.87 last year to 156.35 this year, 15th in the nation, and his completion rate has jumped from 54 percent to 65 percent. Quinn said the key to his improvement is Weis.

"He's a great teacher. He's taught me so many things about how to run an offense and be a leader," Quinn said. "A lot of things he learned in the NFL, he's brought down to teach me."

Weis, a former high school English teacher, hasn't always focused on offense. He worked the defensive side of the ball at South Carolina in the 1980s, and in 1990 with the New York Giants he was the quality control coach, breaking down tapes for the defense and working with linebackers coach Al Groh, now the head coach at Virginia.

But the following year, Parcells offered him a job as the running backs coach and a pay raise of $50,000.

"I made the decision then," Weis said, laughing. "That was an easy one."

Since then he's learned a lot, seen a lot and remembered a lot. Weis thinks that's his biggest advantage as a play caller.

"You build up a reservoir of how to handle the things you are going to go against," he said. "So as you're sitting here watching things you say, 'I remember we did this in 1994, we did this in '96. That reminds me of the game in '98.' So when you have a reservoir it isn't all original thoughts, but to everyone you are going against it is original, because they have never seen it."

Washington coach Tyrone Willingham, who while coaching at Notre Dame met with Weis to learn his offensive philosophy, calls Weis a brash play caller.

"He keeps you very much off balance with what he's doing, what he's thinking. He's unpredictable," Willingham said.

Weis scripts some plays to start the game, but will switch quickly if the game plan isn't working. He bases his play calling on instincts. There are days when everything works. There are games he searches and searches. He knows that somewhere on his play sheet there is something that will work against any defense.

"There's enough ammo to make any change you need to make. You need to find where it is," he said.

He's just as confident in his ability to teach. He believes he has the knowledge to pass along how to play and how to win. He believes football is a much more intellectual game than most people realize.

"That's where teaching comes into play," he said.

So, back in 1991, if instead of offering Weis the job as running backs coach Parcells had offered the job as defensive backs coach, would Weis still be where he is today?

"I'd like to think so," Weis said. "You'd like to think that that's where I would have gone."