Swarbrick again said that no coaches were contacted prior to Monday.

There was never really any one occasion when Notre Dame Director of Athletics Jack Swarbrick informed Charlie Weis that he would no longer be the Irish’s head football coach.

“Charlie and I met regularly and talked regularly throughout this period, so I think in fairness it was a bit of an evolution over time,” Swarbrick said of the decision. “We confirmed it on Saturday after the Stanford game, and so he knew it then.”

Weis knew before Swarbrick delivered his recommendation to University President Father John Jenkins on Sunday night.  Jenkins accepted Swarbrick’s advice and Weis’ firing was announced on Monday afternoon.

“For many of you who may have thought that was a foregone conclusion, I would say to you that the decision was harder than you might have thought, principally because of the man it involved,” said Swarbrick. “Those of us who had the opportunity to work closely with Coach Weis or play for him couldn't help but develop a great affinity for him.

“I've said often in recent days that I've never met anyone for whom there was a bigger gulf between perception and reality, and I think that is true of our departing coach.”

Swarbrick had more kind things to say about the outgoing coach, who actually called to check how Swarbrick was doing on Monday.

“I hope we can find somebody who loves this University as much as he did, does,” said Swarbrick, correcting himself. “And who cared as much about his student athletes as he does. He made many contributions to the University, important things which serve us in good stead going forward.  

“He demonstrated that he can bring the very best student athletes to this campus and attract them to come here to play football for Notre Dame, and he demonstrated that once they're here, they can have the full success we expect from student athletes.”

Swarbrick has made it clear that he expects the Irish football program to be contending for BCS bowl bids on a regular basis and believes that Notre Dame is still capable of competing for national championships.

“The standard for success in this industry now is to be in a position to be selected for the BCS each year,” said Swarbrick. “Some years we may not make that, but our standard isn't in particular wins and losses, although it converts to that, it is are we in a position to compete for a BCS berth.”

In the end, the athletic director did not see enough evidence to cause him to believe that the program was headed in that direction.

“As you look at the entire course of the season, it led you to the conclusion that you couldn't have enough confidence that a jump up was imminent, that you could know with sufficient certainty that next year's results would be significantly different,” he said. “So I think that was probably the tipping point.”

So Notre Dame is now officially looking for a new head coach with receivers coach Rob Ianello overseeing the program in the meantime.

“It's time to move forward because it is critical to this program and to its place in this University and college football that we compete at the highest level, that we compete for national championships,” Swarbrick said. “As we go out now and begin our search, that is our focus, in finding the right individual to lead Notre Dame back to a place of prominence in college football.  

“The University is better when we do that, college football is better when we do that, and the student athletes who call this place home are better when we do that.”

Swarbrick said that the search had not begun until Monday. When asked plainly if Notre Dame has had any contact with any candidates in any way at all, Swarbrick said, “Absolutely not.”

The AD said that Notre Dame had not contacted anyone yet “because we had a head coach.”

Swarbrick said that he reached out to some people in the college football industry on Monday and said he learned that there was great interest in the position.

Swarbrick acknowledged that the job of head football coach at Notre Dame was one with unique challenges, but also unique opportunities.

“I think it has elements which are hard, but you also have these extraordinary resources to work with too,” he said.

He likened the search process for a new coach to the recruitment of student-athletes in that there is a self-selection process.

“The same is true of the coaching search,” he said. “For people who value our approach to collegiate athletics and for people who are excited about being the coach that restores Notre Dame to a place of prominence in college football, I think they'll be so excited to come, it'll be an easy marriage.”

He disputed reports that Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops had been contacted. On Monday, Stoops said that he would be staying in Norman.

“My reaction to all of those reports is that -- and it's important to make this known, that they're all inaccurate,” he said. “We haven't contacted anybody up until this moment, and so it's a bit of an odd situation to be in, to have somebody say, ‘I heard you're interested in person X and person X is now not interested in you.’

“Well, none of that happened, so let's let the process run its course where we can talk to the people we have a strong interest in and see what reaction we get.”

Swarbrick said that he does not have a timetable for securing the next coach, but acknowledged that for recruiting and stability purposes, time was of the essence.

Swarbrick will give Father Jenkins a recommendation on who the next coach should be in the same process that resulted in Weis’ ouster. He will seek the advice of a few others, but the final recommendation will be Swarbrick's alone. He was not sure if the University would hire an outside search firm.

“We have not made that decision yet,” he said. “We have not done that yet, we may. I wouldn't rule it out.”

He said that the University had a list of criteria for the next coach, but did not want to get into too many specifics. He did say that head coaching experience and the experience of running a successful program was important. When asked whether he would prefer an offensive-minded or defensive-minded coach, he declined to answer, but did offer some opinion.

“I don't think you can afford to be that narrow in your approach to candidates. My personal view is that given where we play and who we play, we need to be able to play good defense,” he said. “If you look at the defensive rankings of the leading teams this year, there's a correlation between BCS standings and defensive abilities, and so it's important to us, but it's not a limiter in terms of the background of the coach.”