“Sometimes when you look at a play in a game and it’s a completed pass, you say, ’Oh, it’s a nice job.’ But I might be mad that he didn’t go to the guy he was supposed to,” Weis said.

Weis plans to get on Quinn even if he passes for a 15-yard gain if his first choice was supposed to be a receiver open out on the flat.

“You’re going to say, ’Nice job. Move the chains.’ I will now say to him: ’What’s your first read? Was he open? Did you see him? Did you even look at him?” Weis said, his voice rising. “Now you’re taking him to a whole different level of thought process.”

Weis also plans to give Quinn more responsibility. In the first week of practice this month he began letting Quinn use hand signals to change a pass route for a receiver based on the way a defensive back lines up. For now Quinn can use it on one play the Irish run often. Weis plans to give Quinn more opportunities like that.

“That is not something you give to anybody. That has to be somebody you trust,” Weis said. “What you can now do is get in a position where he can get you in a better play than the one you had called.”

Quinn’s already pushing the issue, asking Weis if he can use the signals on a different play. Weis won’t let him — not yet anyway.

“You have to let him know what he can do and can’t do,” Weis said.

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It’s not only Weis challenging Quinn, though. Quinn keeps Weis on his toes as well. Weis has to be careful around Quinn because if he makes a mistake when he’s talking about a play, Quinn notices immediately.

“I can’t hide if I made a mistake with him. Because if I call a play and I call it a little bit wrong, he’ll say, ’Do you mean this?’ He loves it too — like, ’Got yah,”’ Weis said. “I like this kind of challenge personally.”

He also has the challenge of finding ways to get under the skin of Quinn, who made a joke at media day about how he was eager to hear Weis’ new routine. Of course, Quinn is used to tough love. He said Weis has nothing on his mother, Robin, who used to threaten to take him home after a bad pitching performance when they were traveling Ohio for baseball game when he was growing up. She still is his harshest critic, sometimes even criticizing what he does on the sidelines.

“It’s about everything. Sometimes it’s not even necessarily about something like completion percentage,” he said. “She’s a stickler. She’s tough.”

As tough as Weis can be, he tries to keep his digs to a minimum so they will have maximum impact. He already knows one thing Quinn is going to hear often from him when he slips up.

“Every time that Quinn throws an incomplete pass, he already knows it’s coming. You can ask him because he already knows it’s coming. I will say, ’Yeah, there’s my Heisman Trophy winner.”’

Irish fans are hoping Weis is saying that in New York on Dec. 9.