UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

November 30, 2021

Jack Swarbrick

Press Conference

JACK SWARBRICK: Thank you all for being here. I appreciate you gathering with us this morning.

A year ago this week, I was involved in -- I'm sorry, 12 years ago this week I was involved in a search for a new coach at the University of Notre Dame to lead its football program, and 12 years later I find myself in that role again.

The circumstances could not be more different. Then I was in the process of trying to find someone to fix a very broken program, and in a circumstance where frankly a lot of people didn't think this was a place they wanted to be because they didn't think Notre Dame was committed or able to produce championship football teams.

I couldn't be more pleased with the difference I see today as I embark on another search. In my 14 years, this program has never been in better shape. We have never been in a better position to take the next step in building this program into a consistent contender for National Championships, and I am excited with the opportunity to attract the next leader to do that.

We are in that position in significant part thanks to Coach Kelly, who did a marvelous job of helping to restore the program at the University of Notre Dame. I am thankful to him and Paqui for all they contributed to this university and to the football program and will be ever indebted for the contributions that they made.

Similarly, we are in that position because of a great coaching staff and administrative staff. I think we have arguably the best staff in college football, and it's a testament to why we're in the position we're in today.

But most importantly, I am in an envious position as I go out now and search for the next leader because of our student-athletes. We have 118 of the best young men in America who are at the core of our program.

I met with them this morning, and I was reminded of that and reminded of the fact that the culture built in this program isn't Jack Swarbrick's culture, it's not Brian Kelly's culture, it is the culture built by those young men and especially the leaders of that team.

I am most indebted to them for what they've built, and they have my commitment that I will ensure that nothing that they've built will be diminished or lost as we move this program forward in the weeks, months and years ahead.

With that, I am happy to take questions.

Q. Who is going to be your interim coach as you go through the search, and any chance that person could end up being the permanent head coach?

JACK SWARBRICK: Yeah, we haven't made a decision on an interim yet, and frankly I think we may approach it a little bit differently. This staff is so well-structured and the responsibilities are so well-understood, I feel less of a need to have a designated interim.

But as the search progresses, if we feel a need to put somebody in that position, they would not be a candidate for the job.

Q. You mentioned you felt like Notre Dame was in a really good place; what do you need to do or what are the next steps you need to do in terms of timetable, in terms of recruits to make sure there's not kind of a half-step back here as you're looking for new leadership?

JACK SWARBRICK: First and foremost it's getting the right leader, and so yeah, I recognize the external factors, if you will, the recruiting calendar and transfer portals, but none of that is a reason not to make sure that we run a process that gets the very best person to lead this program forward, so that will be our focus.

Q. You mentioned the players; players have a voice in a lot of things now. Will you invite their voice in the selection process?

JACK SWARBRICK: Not with regard to specific candidates, but absolutely with regard to characteristics and criteria. Every search I've conducted here in every sport I've had a group of student-athletes help advise me, and I'll look to the captains of this football team to play that role.

Q. Seems like Brian had at least one or more conversations with USC and then very obviously had one or more conversations to get to this point with LSU. Did he discuss those conversations with you? Did you get the sense there was something he was looking for that either he didn't believe he could find at Notre Dame or that Notre Dame could not deliver to him?

JACK SWARBRICK: Yes, he did not discuss with me the conversations he had with other universities. We always are talking about the program's needs and how to improve it, and there was not anything identified at any time that was something we could not accommodate or meet. We just didn't have those things come up.

Q. Did he give you any opportunity to try to convince him to stay or to match LSU's offer, and what are some of the defining characteristics that you will look for as you go through this process, and will you use a search firm?

JACK SWARBRICK: We will conduct the search, the University of Notre Dame, and I will lead that search. If we use any outside resources, it'll be for administrative purposes, background checks, maybe booking my travel under a different name, all the things that try and mislead you guys a little bit, keep you off my tail. But no, we will take the lead on the search.

No, Brian did not come to me, which frankly I appreciated, with some opportunity to match the offer. When we talked, he indicated that he was resigning to take another position. He thanked me for the opportunity the university had provided to him, thanked me for our friendship, which I very much appreciated, and I wished him all the best, and we talked a little bit about how today would work.

Q. When did you have that conversation with Brian Kelly, and to what extent were you surprised that that's what he wanted to talk to you about?

JACK SWARBRICK: It was sometime last night, and I can't give you the exact time. I was not surprised. There had been enough in the weeks leading up that gave me a pretty strong sense that there might be other things that were attracting Brian, and then of course social media got very active during the day yesterday.

Between the two things, I was not surprised.

Q. You've discussed with us in the past that for not just this position but all of your head coaching positions that you kind of always keep an ongoing list of what direction you might turn in case you need a replacement, and I don't anticipate you're willing to share that list with us today, but as you look at who would be on your list, how would you characterize those people? Are you looking for someone with head coaching experience? Are you looking for someone in the college ranks? Just curious how you weigh those factors.

JACK SWARBRICK: Yeah, first of all, sometimes I think I'm the only AD in the country but I don't keep a list of people because my experience has been every search has its own dynamic and its own characteristics, so last time we did a football search, we built a list of characteristics, I can't remember now, I think it was 11 or 12, that we built first, and then we screened candidates against that list, and high on that list was rebuilding a program.

Now, rebuilding a program doesn't even show up on the list this year, and so a different focus takes you in different directions. That's where I'm pleased to say we are today.

I forgot to address the characteristics question that was asked earlier so I'm glad you brought it back up.

Fit at Notre Dame is number one. This is a unique place, and it is important that you understand and appreciate the uniqueness. That's a critical element of this.

Increasingly the role of college football head coaches is a CEO role, and so clearly understanding your approach to building and managing staff becomes very important.

Next, what's your approach to playing the game? What's your style? How do you achieve victory on the football field?

And then a whole list of things that relate to attracting and developing great student-athletes, and especially the development part of it. I am really pleased with where our recruiting is today and the improvements we've made in it, the resources we've put into it, but I still want to be a great development program, so what are your ideas on developing young men to be great players, great champions and great parts of our community.

Q. As it relates to your head coach being CEO-like, will you entertain someone that's not been a head coach before?

JACK SWARBRICK: I don't want to answer it as a hypothetical. We're going to take those characteristics, and we're going to find the best person. I don't want to set any individual criteria as part of that.

Q. Have you guys reached out to anyone yet just to begin gauging interest?

JACK SWARBRICK: No, although I've had a lot of outreach. I'm going to spend the day starting to reply to that outreach.

Q. Is there a timetable that you're working under as you move forward with this?

JACK SWARBRICK: No. Every search process has its own rhythm. You want to do the best job you can, not the fastest job you can. We're going to do the best job we can to find the right person to lead Notre Dame.

Q. In terms of communication with assistant coaches, do you meet with all of them? How will that process go?

JACK SWARBRICK: Well, the first decision I made last night was to keep them on the road because Notre Dame is in a great place, and I don't want anybody to think we're not moving forward full steam, and so our coaches have remained out on the road. Because of that I can't convene them as a group, so we've communicated via email, and I've had calls with several of them. I haven't gotten to all of them yet.

Q. Have you been made aware of any assistant coaches that will definitely be going with Brian Kelly to LSU?

JACK SWARBRICK: No.

Q. What happens if you make the playoff? Do you allow Brian Kelly to coach, or who coaches for you?

JACK SWARBRICK: No, we will have our current coaching staff, I hope, largely intact, and we'll designate the person who has to make the jump-ball calls, like how to use time-outs and the coin flip, but we've got a great staff. We've got great coordinators, and so I have every confidence that we will be fully prepared for what I hope is a CFP game, but if not I'm certain there will be a great New Year's Six game, and Brian will not be part of that for us.

Q. What does it say about just the landscape of college football right now in that we've had in about 36-hour span two of the most significant high-profile coaching moves for $100 plus million in contract over the last couple days? What does it say about where college football is right now?

JACK SWARBRICK: Oh, I probably need more time to process that. Obviously it has -- you've seen a significant shift, right? You've seen a shift in mobility and a shift in compensation.

I think your question is the right one. I don't have the answer. But I think we'd better be asking it. We'd better be asking what we want college football to be and how we make sure it still fits inside a university environment.

Q. Going off of that, when you look at the timing of this with departure from a major program that's still in the mix for a CFP berth, how do you process that and how surprised are you that it happened when it did with you guys still in the mix?

JACK SWARBRICK: Oh, you know, the timing is always going to be this, right? Two things have happened. One is schools have accelerated their decisions to relieve coaches, and you saw that this year.

But coaches are going to make the decisions this time of year because if you get further you're probably not going to -- don't have attractive options available to you. So nothing surprises me about the timing or that it occurs in a year where we have had an exceptional year and are well-positioned for postseason.

You know, that's a little bit of the dynamic now. Look, 12 years is a really long time at Notre Dame. We were incredibly well-served to have Brian here for that period of time. But it's a long time.

I have contemplated for some period of time that there had to be an end point coming. We hadn't talked specifically about when that was, but -- in both a long-term perspective and the near term, this wasn't a surprise, and I think this place is perfectly prepared to move forward.

Q. In terms of infrastructure and facilities, what does Notre Dame need next from your point of view to compete for a National Championship to take sort of the next final step?

JACK SWARBRICK: Well, the first thing is to note how pleased I am with what we've accomplished with facilities in recent years. I think we have the best indoor athletic center or indoor football facility in the country, and most of the NFL scouts that come in make that same observation. So that was a major investment we've made. We've made investments in our other practice fields. We've made investments in the building itself. We redid all of the offices last year.

So it's a matter of continued investment. We'll always be updating the weight room. We'll always be updating the locker room.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, we need to figure out how to most effectively either expand or change the footprint for the football operations building.

Q. You mentioned that schools have accelerated their process with changing coaches; do you think that's a good development, or is it just kind of the nature of the beast? Is that going to be the way things are done from now on?

JACK SWARBRICK: You know, I suppose it's hard to generalize because every circumstance is a little different, but I hope it doesn't become too much of a trend. I think the experience for the student-athletes is generally better when they have continuity through their season. I hope we won't see it as a trend.

Q. Are there other areas that Brian Kelly may have expressed any desire for Notre Dame to have flexibility on, whether it is admissions, whether it's housing, whether it's NIL, anything like that?

JACK SWARBRICK: No. We just didn't have those. We always have personnel discussions about do we need another X or Y on the staff, and we've always been prepared to support those, and we talk about facilities, but one of the things I appreciated about Brian and why he was successful here was maybe after a little initial resistance, he came to appreciate the things that define Notre Dame like its residentiality policy, like its admissions standards, like its unique eligibility standards.

It had been a long, long time since we had had conversations about any of those.

Q. I had a question that's a little less specific about what things on campus Brian Kelly might have taken issue with, but did you get the sense that he felt he had reached a ceiling at Notre Dame in terms of what he could accomplish? Obviously incredible seasons and success and making the College Football Playoff but never really getting the monkey off its back of getting past the first round.

JACK SWARBRICK: Yeah, I don't want to speak for Brian. He can answer that question. I think it's fair for me to share that he told the team today that it was just about another opportunity and the right time for his family to take on another opportunity and have another experience. It struck me how much it sort of was similar to the comments made by Lincoln the day before. I think there's an element of that.

There's no sense in which I think it was motivated by a belief that we couldn't take the next step here. Brian has consistently reinforced to the team that we are positioned to take that next step, and I believe that passionately.

Q. You mentioned the patience you will use in this process. I'm curious given the playoff and big postseason games, are you willing to wait until after that with a potential coaching candidate, or do you guys likely have to get someone in place before at least the end of the calendar year?

JACK SWARBRICK: It's about the right candidate. When we find the person we think is the right one to lead this program and have the right conversations with him, that's all that matters. If that happens tomorrow or weeks from now, that's fine. This is about getting the right person.

Q. What do you think is still separating Notre Dame from winning a National Championship, because Brian was always very up front that that is the only goal that matters. Where is the gap? What has to be closed there in your mind?

JACK SWARBRICK: When I look at the team that played the last half of the season, I don't see a gap. I think this team is really well-positioned. I believe we're one of the top four teams in the country.

The cumulative results of our last four or five games I think are compelling. I think we can play with anybody in the country right now.

Can we get better? Always. Every team can. But a lot of the things that we chased for a while, we've put ourselves in a much different position: Youth, depth, development have all put us in a really strong place.

Q. You said earlier Brian did not discuss conversations with other schools with you and you also said you were not surprised when you ultimately received that call from him last night. Why is that, and why do you think he ultimately left Notre Dame?

JACK SWARBRICK: Well, I'll have to let Brian answer the question of why he ultimately left Notre Dame. I can't answer that.

There's just a sense you get when you work closely with somebody for 12 years that there's a certain restlessness, and I could sense that. I could sense that in some conversations.

There was a Freudian slip or two along the way that sort of grabbed my attention, and whether that was intentional or not, you just felt like -- it feels a little bit like somebody who might be open to a different opportunity.

Q. When you do recognize those Freudian slips in the moment, what's your approach to that as far as trying to keep him happy, trying to keep him here, or recognizing that that ship may have already sailed and you both need to move in other directions?

JACK SWARBRICK: You know, we never had a conversation along those lines, which is why I think this was fundamentally a decision by Brian and his family. This wasn't a matter of saying, gosh, I need X or Y to remain at Notre Dame. There just weren't any of those conversations.

I would not have resisted to enter into those conversations. Let me stress, we've always talking about improvements in the program, constantly, and we have a capital improvement plan that spans the next three years. So it's not about not doing things to get better. It's just that we talked about what those would be and what those would look like, and there wasn't distance between us.

Q. I just wanted to clarify a response regarding the lack of interim head coach; did you say there would not possibly be a promotion from within when you mentioned there might not be an interim head coach for this month?

JACK SWARBRICK: First of all, I don't see interim head coach as a promotion. It's somebody to make some decisions that need to be made in that capacity.

All I was saying was my confidence level in this staff gives me some time to deal with that issue, and if I think operationally we need somebody to play that role, we'll put somebody in that role, but I asked the players today to give me a little time on that one because I just want to see how we operate for a little while here. We've got a really talented staff who's working very hard for Notre Dame right now.