NEW ORLEANS — It hasn’t been a distraction, but it has been strange. That’s how Charlie Weis Jr. summed up the past month after agreeing to join Lane Kiffin at LSU but also staying with Ole Miss as the offensive play caller through the College Football Playoff.

And Weis has always been the play caller, he emphasized, with the offensive operation not feeling different without Kiffin around during the Rebels’ first-round win over Tulane.

Weis spoke Tuesday morning, two days before the CFP quarterfinal game against Georgia, in his first public comments since Kiffin’s departure for LSU and Weis Jr.’s decision to join him after the playoff.

“It was a really hard decision,” Weis said. “But at the end of the day, I owe a lot to Coach Kiffin and the things he’s given to me in my career and brought me along and giving me opportunities to come here to Ole Miss and Alabama. And so we just have a really good relationship. And I think we work really well with each other. And, we have a system that kind of works. And so, I was excited to continue to do that. And obviously I’ve had a great time here at Ole Miss.”

Weis said the experience has been “extremely emotional,” referring to how things “spiraled” in the lead-up to the Egg Bowl, which proved to be Kiffin’s last game as coach. Ole Miss did not grant Kiffin’s request to stay with the team through the playoff, so he departed for LSU, and hired Weis Jr. and several other assistants to join him. However, Ole Miss allowed Weis and other assistants to stay with the team until the end of the season, meaning he’s been pulling double duty, game planning and coaching the Rebels in practice, then spending time at night preparing to run LSU’s offense, including potential transfer portal additions.

Those additions could include players from Ole Miss. Weis said he has a good relationship with athletic director Keith Carter and new head coach Pete Golding, and there’s an understanding that Weis would “handle things the right way.

“I’ve made sure to go out of my way to not do anything that makes them feel uncomfortable, you know?” Weis said. “There were no guardrails put in. But I’ve made sure to do things respectfully and the right way because I owe it to them, because they’re allowing me to finish this playoff run.

“… So, it’s been strange. But no, I don’t feel like it’s been a distraction at all. Our players, they’re a very mature group too, and so I credit them a lot throughout the course of the year.”

Weis called plays in Ole Miss’ rout of Tulane on Dec. 20, which put it into the quarterfinals against Georgia. Weis said he’s been the main play caller the entire time at Ole Miss, and some of the time they worked together at Florida Atlantic.

Still, Kiffin was always “extremely involved in the process,” as Weis put it, helping with the game plan, making suggestions before a series, or recognizing something on defense and suggesting a play. How was the operation different without Kiffin?