Jack Swarbrick shares message from Notre Dame captains in coaching search

As Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick went about replacing Brian Kelly, he solicited opinions from players. They knew what they wanted in a new coach — and Swarbrick took their thoughts to heart.

Swarbrick said whenever he replaces a coach, the first people he wants to hear from are the players. He doesn’t necessarily ask for names, but is more looking for what the players want in their next coach.

They weren’t as worried about much on the field. But off the field, one word rang out: Culture.

“What they insisted I understand was that they had built the best culture in college football,” Swarbrick said Monday. “That they had friends playing at other places around the country, they have a way to make that assessment, and they were confident that this culture in this program was the best in the country. But they also wanted me to know that they owned that culture. They built it. It was theirs.

“And their message, stated clearly and convincingly, was, ‘Jack, don’t screw this up.’ I got the message. In short, they convinced me that I had two separate tasks in front of me. One was to select the best possible coach to lead the program. The other was to protect the culture that they had built.”

Freeman was a popular choice from the get-go. Some players went on the Inside The Garage podcast and voiced their support for him to replace Brian Kelly, who left Notre Dame for LSU last week. If there was an internal candidate, Freeman appeared to be the one.

But Freeman wasn’t the only holdover from Kelly’s staff. In fact, Swarbrick went a step further to ensure the culture remained in tact. He moved to keep two key assistants on the staff before he knew who the new head coach would be.

“It was … the protection of the culture that led me to make the unusual decision to make a commitment to our director of performance, Matt Balis, that regardless of who became the head coach, he — the minister of culture, if you would — would stay in his position,” Swarbrick said. “It was the same motivation that caused me to begin parallel negotiations with a critical part of this team and this culture, [offensive coordinator] Tom Rees, before I knew for sure who the head coach would be.

“To be sure the perspective that those seven captains offered to me put a heavy finger on the scale in favor of Coach Freeman. But that was only because they and I believe so strongly that Marcus is the perfect guardian of the very special culture you, the student athletes, have built.”