As Rob posted below, it appears the athletic department is set to hire Jack Swarbrick as the new AD, with the Chicago Tribune now confirming the report that started buzzing overnight.  I'm not sure what qualifications one looks for in an AD, but I imagine that Swarbrick could be seen as an unconventional hire.  He's never worked in the capacity of athletic director, or anywhere else in college administration, but the Indianapolis lawyer has been closely involved with negotiating big-time sporting events for the city, including the Final Four and Super Bowl.  Perhaps most importantly, if you can convince the NFL to put the finale of their season in Indianapolis, regardless of whether there's a new stadium or not, you must have at least traces of silver on your tongue.

Despite his inexperience at the college level, Swarbrick was a finalist for the NCAA presidency eventually awarded to Myles Brand and has spent time working with gymnastics, rowing and other Olympic sports.  He also has the qualification of being a Notre Dame alum, meaning there won't be any awkward transition phase where veterans in the athletic department have to recommend it best we not sell the naming rights to the Stadium or change the color scheme.  When discussing what I wanted in our new AD, the only two qualifications I really cared about was getting an alum and someone who could get things done, and it seems like Swarbrick fits that bill quite nicely.  For Swarbrick's sake, it would probably be nice if this football season was a success, as it the first six months on the job might be significantly tougher if Weis' future is being debated during it.

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The reason for last week's disappearance was a particularly busy early week followed by the extended Rakes family gathering in South Bend for the wedding of our good friend Dan.  You'll be pleased to know Rob delivered quite a toast and there was much with the drinking and dancing, but before we got to the wedding, there was the brief sojourn in our hotel room Friday night after the rehearsal dinner and before we headed over to Finnies.  Watching for scores on ESPNews, the dreaded "NCAAF" tab scrolled across - there is very little good news during the college offseason - and it was revealed that Darrin Walls would be leaving school for personal reasons.  Rob had mentioned this to me last month when I was up visiting, but this was an instance of an internet rumor sadly becoming fact.

What did this mean for the Irish?  They likely lost one of their best defensive players and number one corner, but it's tough to say just whether Walls was going to be that shutdown guy or not.  He played well last season, but it was tough to really judge the pass defense when opposing offenses were just gleefully running the ball for eight yards a carry the majority of snaps.  The Irish numbers were good, but that didn't mean much when most opponents were just doing whatever they wanted.  The top three corner spots will be filled by Terrail Lambert, Gary Gray and Raeshon McNeil, with our early bet for the new dimeback in Jon Tenuta's defense being Kerry Neal, who will simply blitz every time.  This strategy worked really well for me in NCAA Football 2004, as the CPU QB never quite figured out that the same cornerback was going to be driving a shoulder into his spine every single time he dropped back for more than two seconds.

The Irish also lost wide receiver D.J. Hord over the weekend.  Hord had some pretty serious injury issues he was never able to shake, and will be moving onto a I-AA school.  I don't think any Irish fans were expecting much from Hord with the assumed progressions of Duval Kamara and Golden Tate along with the arrival of Michael Floyd and the rest of the freshman class, but you never want to see injuries ruin a collegiate career.

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You have to check out the cavalcade of mistakes in just a few paragraphs of ESPN's Notre Dame preview over at Her Loyal Sons.  All you really have to do is just play around on Google and the messageboards for an hour and you can put together a pretty competent preview of any NCAA team, yet the World Wide Leader can't even get names right.  Yeesh.

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College football fans unite across the country today as NCAA Football 2009 comes out.  I'm debating on whether I should just get the PS2 version or finally make my choice between PS3 and XBox360 for this special occasion.  I would have been okay with the PS2 version until the commercial that ran during the Home Run Derby last night, which was obviously the next-gen system and caused my chin to bruise from the velocity in which it hit the ground.  Anyone with suggestions and/or opinions in regards to the PS3 versus 360, please lay them on me.

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And finally, while this might be a little too geeky for you rough and tumble college football fans, the first act of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is up and it has the makings of something pretty awesome.  Whedon is the genius behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and he's recruited the legendary Neil Patrick Harris as the title character of his web musical.  Nathan Fillion is the rival of NPH on a number of different levels in the video as the dickish superhero Captain Hammer.  These are free for now, so take a fourteen minute break and enjoy.