I just want to start by saying how excited I am to announce this Gerhard Parker as our new offensive coordinator and the direction our offensive will take under his leadership. I had a criterion and a vision for what I was looking for when this process began. And I wanted to see a pro-style offense on film. What does that mean? There are several, several formations, several employees, professional concepts in the passing game, several running schemes.
But it’s not just one thing you’re looking for, right, it’s several different things that I think will help our boys translate as they move up to the NFL. So when I say pro style offensive, that’s exactly what I meant. And the criterion was that we wanted to search nationwide. And we wanted to see an offensive display, right? I wanted a coordinator to call it.
I wanted to see someone who runs with a high success rate. And those were the criteria I had when I was looking for this offensive coordinator. And the two most common crimes you saw in the film were Kansas State and Utah. And we interviewed these two guys. We brought them both to campus. And for reasons of their own, they decided not to come. And so we got back together and looked at all these different candidates that we were looking for.
And at some point during this process, Gerhard Parker rose to the top. And we put him through a long, tough interview and what he was able to show me and where we currently stand as an offense, his understanding of the terminology and our offensive philosophy over the past year, but also the vision of how he is dealing with what he is what he has done, can improve and what he thinks it takes to be successful as an offensive coordinator was halfway through the interview and I was certain.
I said, “That’s our next offensive coordinator,” but I wanted to take some time and really sleep on it and think about it and not make an emotional decision. And I woke up in the morning, I remember calling Jack and saying, ‘I think we’ve found our next offensive coordinator.’ And so during this process I was made aware of some misconceptions about what was being said out there and obviously most of it is just not true. And my wife even showed me a picture of me as someone out there asking for money for a buyback and it had my head on it.
You know, I said, ‘Listen’, I told them, ‘This is not my job now.’ I found it pretty funny. But misunderstanding the apparent support, at no point during this process did I not have the support of Jack Swabrick and the administration. I want to be very clear about that. At no point during this process or since my time here have I felt that I have not had the support of our administration and Jack. He offered to pay for anything there was to buy. And that’s part of college football, it’s part of the business, right?
There are specific buyouts for different people. Jack Swabrick has never shied away from paying a buyout. And listen, in our business, which is a part of college football and college business, we negotiate acquisitions. Every coordinator, positional coach that has a buyout, we talk about these things. We discuss them. But that’s not why anyone didn’t choose Notre Dame. Let’s make sure we figure this out.
Two people decided it was best for them to stay where they are. And kudos to her. Congratulations. We have found the man who I believe is the right man for us. And I just don’t want the narrative to be that someone didn’t pick Notre Dame for an acquisition because it’s not true. And I will say it again and again. That’s not the truth. OK? And I know there were a lot of questions about the process, which I understand.
But again, I can’t reiterate enough how excited I am for Gerad and our new offensive line. And Gerad is a guy that I’ve known for over 10 years and we’ve had a lot of conversations about it, even in our days at Purdue, about one day we’re going to be in a position where one of us is the head coach and the other coordinator is. And for that to happen, I’m really looking forward to our football program and really looking forward to our offense.