Notre Dame football: Swarbrick puts finer points on Kelly's return to ND
By ERIC HANSEN - Follow me @hansensouthbend
South Bend Tribune Staff Writer
8:30 p.m. EST, January 12, 2013
SOUTH BEND — Shortly after Notre Dame announced Brian Kelly would return as the Irish head football coach, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick put some finer points on Kelly’s flirtation with the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and the future of ND football.
Q: Is there an extension and raise for Brian Kelly and raises for the assistant coaches in the works?
Swarbrick: When I sat down with Brian in the first week of December as we always did, I told him that I wanted to redo his contract and make some adjustments to the assistants’ contracts, and I’ve been working on it since the first week of December.
Yes it’s in the works, but it would be wrong to connect it to this week.
Q: So if the Eagles offer had never happened, we’re taking same terms, same money? This was already in motion?
Swarbrick: Absolutely.
Q: When will there be resolution with that?
Swarbrick: It’s going to take some time. I think I said earlier. I don’t see it as weeks or days. I see it in a longer time frame and it’s going to -- certainly weeks -- but I don’t know.
We’ve been working on it for a while.
Q: When did the Eagles approach you to ask permission to talk to Brian Kelly?
Swarbrick: It was right after their position became open. It was in December. And I asked and they, with consistent nature of that organization, agreed there would be no discussions until after the national championship.
Q: Was Brian aware of the interest before the national championship?
Swarbrick: He was aware that if there was a discussion, it wouldn’t happen until after the championship. So we were all three -- the Eagles, Brian and I -- all on the same page.
Q: Did you consider not granting permission to the Eagles and would you ever consider doing that with a coach? Or is the healthy thing to do is let somebody see what’s out there and so forth.
Swarbrick: I think it’s the nature of Notre Dame. I have such confidence in the place, and as you know I have such affection for it, if I have a situation where somebody thinks there’s a better place to be, I want them to go.
I think the way to have people being fully committed and sort of excited about being there is to let them compare other opportunities. So I’m really comfortable with it.
Q: Do you feel like this will happen again, that you’ll have to deal with this on an annual or every-other-year basis?
Swarbrick: No, I don’t. I think this was Brian’s first opportunity to explore this and to understand sort of the dynamics that might exist with a premier NFL franchise, so he now has that information and now understands it, so I don’t see this as a regular occurrence.
That’s not to say sometime in his future he might not decide to go to the NFL, but I don’t see any sort of regular consideration of that.
Q: Before you came on board, Kevin White locked Charlie Weis into terms that made it difficult for him to leave as well as the university to fire him with certain financial constraints. Do you see that to be necessary with Brian or do you want him to be free to explore if he really wants to go somewhere else?
Swarbrick: It’s about having reasonableness on both sides. There’s a consequence for leaving if you leave and a consequence to the university of you make a change. It’s having those be reasonable. That’s the focus I’ve had with all coaches’ agreements. You want to be fair if you want to make a change, but you don’t want to subject the university to some liability that’s sort of out of whack.
Q: There was some strong reaction from fans, from recruits. Do you feel like Brian Kelly’s job just got harder, at least for the next few months in terms of maybe having to win some people over?
Swarbrick: The people that he works with every day understood the dynamic. The student-athletes did. My sense when I was in the Gug was a sense of sort of no particular anxiety. A lot of people shared the confidence that I had that Brian would be back, and even people who were worried about it were assured that he was approaching it in exactly the right way in terms of informing people.
Now I absolutely understand the anxiety among our fans. That’s the passion that fuels Notre Dame. Look how many college coaches in this postseason have been involved in discussions or will be involved in discussions with NFL teams.
And the reaction among NFL fans was unique. That’s because they’re passionate.
Q: I know you can’t comment on specific recruits, because of NCAA rules, but were you confident there was going to be resolution by this weekend to keep the negative effects in recruiting to a minimum?
Swarbrick: I was confident from the outset it would be resolved quickly. It was a little complicated by Brian being on vacation. But he managed it, notwithstanding that challenge, and I think it moved at a fair pace.
You’re right, I can’t comment on any recruits, but I’ll make the obvious observation that in my experience every year there are a couple of people you lose that you don’t think you will and there are a couple of people you get that you don’t think you will, and it’s always going to be that way.
Q: You mentioned in Florida, before the national championship game, you were going to sit down with Brian and go through the laundry list of resources needed to improve the program. Do you believe Brian’s discussion with the Eagles was a way to leverage to get more things on the list?
Swarbrick: We already had started the process before this very actively. We always use the first week in December, had a lengthy meeting to initiate this and we have continued it since. So, no, I understand the perception of that.
But here’s the interesting thing, if somebody is leveraging you, there’s not really a risk they’re leaving. And so for people who were upset he might leave, you can’t also claim he was just leveraging.
I’m absolutely certain this was a thoughtful, honest evaluation by Coach of an opportunity. And he never used it in any way to try to lever me or the university.
Q: Do you feel as confident today as you did last Sunday night that this is the guy who gets you to the national championship game and win one of these?
Swarbrick: Yeah, frankly his decision reflects that confidence. He sees the same strength in the program I do and he wants to be here to finish the job. It’s one thing to build the foundation. It’s another thing to get that certified. That can only be done when you hold the crystal ball and that’s what he wants to do.
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