Jack Swarbrick was always the smartest person in the room

Hate on haters

The importance of Notre Dame Football’s independence has been something which has been talked about, argued about, and reported about for decades. While it’s sometimes hard to imagine the complete college football narrative during the pre-internet world, Irish independence wasn’t remotely as hot of a subject back then as it is now.

It did, however, really start heating up when Notre Dame made its historical television deal with NBC.

But this story doesn’t need such a deep preamble — not for those that really care. We’re here to talk about Jack Swarbrick and how he took the derogatory moniker of “Savvy Jack” and made it honorable.

In 2010 the college football world descended into a state of mass hysteria when it comes to conference realignment. It’s funny to think about the reasons so many schools decided to make a move to a different conference when so many of those reasons were either overblown (i.e. recruiting footprint) or now outdated (i.e. television media market).

Through all of the hysteria, we were told countless times that “this is it,” the Irish finally HAVE to join a conference. Moves were made by the Big 10, for example, to try and strongarm the Irish into their fold — and yet it never happened.

Under the leadership of Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame moved all of its athletic programs from the Big East to the ACC and locked in 5 ACC games a year as part of the price. The move wasn’t the most popular with many of the Notre Dame alumni and fans, but it gave plenty of stability to a football program that was just starting to find a little stability with Brian Kelly as its head coach after almost two decades of incompetence.

As the BCS system started to teeter, Jack Swarbrick and the conference commissioners of the power five conferences devised a four team playoff system which gave Notre Dame the only thing they needed — full access. This was despite many within the college football landscape that wanted to use the playoff system to either force the Irish into a conference, or keep them out entirely. Notre Dame then went on to be one of just a handful of programs that made the four team playoff multiple times.

During the era of the four team playoff, the world was struck with the plague of COVID-19. There were fears by many that there wouldn’t be a college football season. The Big 10 itself was going to go ahead and skip out on the season, but then Jack Swarbrick made an astonishing move. Notre Dame football joined the ACC for one year to mitigate scheduling and travel issues that came about due to COVID. The Irish not only made the ACC Championship game, but also went on to make the college football playoff.

Once everyone got a taste of the playoff life, there were countless calls for expansion. With those calls came a long list of requests for variations to the playoff systems regarding size and administration.

Enter Jack Swarbrick… again.

Jack, a lowly athletic director for a small private school in northern Indiana, got together with the other decision makers of the sport and devised a new 12 team playoff system that introduced byes for the top four teams and home playoff games for the first round. It also gave us the Notre Dame rule which stated that only conference champions would be allowed a first round bye. Even if the committee ranked the Irish #1, the highest seed they could get would be #5.

This new system was widely criticized by ND fans and alumni. How could Jack sell the Irish out of a possible bye game and easier path to the national championship (or at least a fairer path)? I was one of those voices that openly mocked the compromise, and the overall concept of the conference champion seeding.

All it took was one year of the system to show its flaws, and fans demanded change — and change is on the way.

And I don’t think this is a coincidence. Jack knew the system they came up with wouldn’t last for long, and Notre Dame’s place would eventually be back on even footing — and actually they are on much higher ground. I absolutely believe this.

Why?

Because just about every move Jack made over the years resulted in not only the enrichment of the program and university, but has also only cemented Notre Dame’s position as an Independent with equal access to a national championship.

Jack was always the smartest person in the room. His moves weren’t born out of greed, but out of survival as the last major independent school in college football… and the Irish are in a stronger position than they have been in a very long time.

This is Jack Swarbrick’s legacy, and it’s a legacy that only gets stronger with time.