Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick has no plans to go through a football coaching search this offseason.
The Fighting Irish are 2-5 after consecutive losses to North Carolina State and Stanford. But Swarbrick said coach Brian Kelly is not in danger of losing his job.
“Brian will lead this team out of the tunnel opening day next year,” the AD said to ESPN.
Kelly was hired after the 2009 season and the 2-5 start is Kelly’s worst as the Irish coach. He has a career 57-28 record at Notre Dame.
The Irish made a coaching change after a home loss to Duke to fall to 1-3, firing defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder. The Irish gave up an average of 41.3 points in those three losses.
The offense has struggled too. Notre Dame couldn’t do anything with the ball vs. NC State and the team head-scratchingly called 26 pass plays. The 10-3 Wolfpack win was played in driving rain and wind courtesy of Hurricane Matthew.
In last week’s loss to Stanford, Kelly replaced quarterback Deshone Kizer with Malik Zaire in the third quarter after Kizer threw two interceptions. Kizer stepped in to replace Zaire when Zaire was injured in 2015 and completed 63 percent of his passes. Kizer’s completion percentage is down five points in 2016 and he has thrown seven picks. He threw 10 in 2015.
In addition to saying Kelly will be the team’s coach in 2017, Swarbrick added that he had “great confidence” in the coach. If Notre Dame was to make a coaching change after the season, it would have entered a potentially crowded coaching market, possibly competing with the likes of LSU, Texas and others.
“His focus has been really laser sharp, his relationship with this team is probably as strong as any that I’ve seen with him at Notre Dame, and those are all positives. Neither of us are satisfied with 2-5, but I’m at most of the practices. I’m at training table. I have an office at the Gug [football complex] in addition to my other office. I get to see the program day in and day out and I continue to have great confidence in Brian and confidence in our future as a program.”
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