Jack Swarbrick and ND Football

As most of you know I have one true passion in life, Notre Dame football. A majority of my posts will involve the Irish. However, I will discuss some other topics as the blog grows from its infancy into whatever the hell we want. So, for my inaugral post, here is an article where Eric Hansen (South Bend Tribune ND football beat writer a.k.a fat fuck) interviews ND's AD Jack Swarbrick.

I just wish to highlight two quotes from Swarbrick which have lead me to trust him as an AD:

A: "It was very detailed. I want to be clear, it was not as much about people as it was about functions — greater clarity of responsibilities in the staff. How do we approach the offensive game plan? Play-calling? So it was that level of detail, but it's not for me to evaluate assistant coaches. The head coach does that, does it well."

I find it interesting he says it is not about people. I would say most ND football fans would agree some of the assistant coaches sucked. I like how Swarbrick makes a point of letting people know that he is not a control freak when it comes to every aspect of his sports programs. He trusts Charlie to evaluate his coaches; I really like that.

"I'm a big data guy. I do a lot of data analysis. At the end of the season, I sat down and did a bunch. That leads you to some conclusions of what you didn't do very well. And you focus on those. How do we get better? Is it a personnel change? Is it a scheme change? How do we approach this?

"Because I was able to identify enough of those that I thought were very specific, I have great optimism that when you deal with those and get better in those areas, it's going to make a big difference on the field.

"I can make a pretty strong argument that we were three plays from being 9-3. And that gives you a much different perception. The flip side of that is we had some good plays that is if you take some good plays out of the mix, we would have been hurt. But you could point to very specific plays in our season that were game-changers."

I think this shows that he thinks Charlie can get it done. All ND fans can relate to the last paragraph of his quote. Swarbrick knows there were a plethora of plays that changed the season.

Ultimately, the reason I trust Swarbrick is because he gave Charlie another chance and I believe Charlie will get it done. Call me a homer, I don't care because if Charlie doesn't get it done I won't remember too many Saturday evenings.