Jack Swarbrick details late night discussion with Brian Kelly before departure

The news that former Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly would be leaving Notre Dame for LSU came as a shock to nearly everyone. Nearly is the key word, apparently.

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told the media on Tuesday that he was less shocked as Monday evening’s events unfolded. 

“It was sometime last night,” Swarbrick said when asked at what time Kelly came to him, although he did not provide specifics. “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 tracking Brian. Then, of course, social media got very active during the day yesterday, so between the two things I was not surprised.”

Swarbrick added there had been a few “Freudian slips” by Kelly in recent weeks. Details were not given.

Initial reports the former Irish head coach may be in talks with LSU started late in the afternoon on social media on Monday, and they were deafening just a couple of hours later. Pete Thamel of Yahoo! Sports reported the deal was being finalized just before 8:00 p.m. ET. Kelly had a meeting with the team at 7 a.m. ET on Tuesday, and he was in his car leaving Notre Dame just over 10 minutes later.

Was there an offer to keep Kelly?

On the topic of a counter offer, Swarbrick says there was not one. 

“Brian did not come to me, which frankly I appreciated, with some opportunity to match the offer,” Swarbrick said. “When we talked, he indicated that he was resigning to take another position.”

While Swarbrick declined to speak for Kelly when addressing a question concerning why Kelly left, he indicated it was not because Kelly felt he could not reach his goals at Notre Dame. 

“It was just about another opportunity and the right time for his family to take on another opportunity,” Swarbrick added. “It’s sort of similar to the comments made by Lincoln [Riley] the day before. There’s no sense that it was motivated by a belief that we couldn’t take the next step here.”

The question was notable given the last three coaches to lead LSU have won national championships: Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron. Additionally, Notre Dame had the opportunity to compete for a national title three times under Kelly: they made the national championship game in 2012, and they made the College Football Playoff in 2018 and 2020. All three events were blowout losses.

As Swarbrick referenced, Riley made the other shocking move of the young week in college football on Sunday, leaving Oklahoma for Notre Dame’s biggest rival, USC.

Swarbrick will now lead a coaching search, one about which he offered little detail on Tuesday. The two most obvious candidates being thrown around are defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman and Cincinnati head coach Luke Fickell.

The Irish athletic director declined to say if he would appoint an interim head coach, citing confidence in the team’s assistants. He did state that should there be an interim coach named, that person would not be in the running to become the permanent replacement in South Bend.

Swarbrick has been in his position at Notre Dame since 2008, so he led Notre Dame’s head coaching search when they hired Kelly in late 2009.