When a major outlet covering Notre Dame trumpets an exclusive interview with athletic director Jack Swarbrick, especially when the topic is the football program, there’s an expectation that you’ll learn something new. Not really the case with today’s article that featured Swarbrick renewing his commitment to head coach Brian Kelly, albeit without saying much he hasn’t said before.

Let’s tackle three of the biggest points Swarbrick covered in the interview:

The offseason’s sweeping changes to the program reinforced his confidence in Kelly

This isn’t surprising, especially given the (to this point unsubstantiated) belief that Swarbrick basically forced many of the changes Kelly made, but the AD was pleased with Kelly’s handling of the unprecedented level of assistant coaching turnover. New coordinators Mike Elko and Chip Long joined other new assistants, among them Clark Lea and strength coach Matt Balis (ND players’ positive reaction to Balis has been all over Irish Twitter of late). Kelly publicly gave Long play-calling duties, and said he did it because his players told him they liked the more hands-on approach he took to the team in the second half of last season.

“Probably the thing you have to ask yourself…when you hit hard times is, is this a coach who’s prepared to fully examine the program and make the changes you think need to be made? And that’s one of his great strengths. He’ll look at anything if he thinks it’ll help the team.”

No early returns mean much until we see what happens starting Sept. 2, but it’s hard to find a negative in the moves so far. The new coaches helped salvage what was setting up to be a train wreck of a recruiting class, finishing just outside the top 10 in the 24/7 Sports composite (far and away better than any other non-bowl team, for whatever that’s worth). On top of that, the new coaches have already secured several high-level commitments for the 2018 class, which has it up to #2 in the rankings at this early juncture behind only Penn State.

Kelly’s public and private claims to responsibility for 4-8 strengthened his bond with the team

If there was anything truly new to come from Swarbrick in this interview, this was probably it.

“There’s a vulnerability that coaches don’t often show their teams. And when they do, it has an impact. If there’s an evolution from the time I’ve been around athletics until now, from the athlete’s perspective, it’s that they want to know the coach.”

He specifically cited the locker room after the NC State loss, the game in which ND called more passes than runs in, literally, a hurricane, with predictable results. After that loss, the ICON video Fighting Irish Media posted showed Kelly in the locker room commending his team and blaming himself for not being able to deliver a victory.

Kelly, who infamously hasn’t always been so magnanimous, blamed himself again in a recent press conference, saying “there are no bad football teams, only poorly-led football teams, and I led this team poorly.”

These actions, along with a solid relationship that Swarbrick claims is belied by the reputation Kelly has picked up from his sideline interaction with players, have built a solid foundation for 2017, Swarbrick says.

“Zero. None. Absolutely none.”

The closest thing Swarbrick came to a criticism of Kelly in the Star interview was his reaction to the above quote, which Kelly said described his level of culpability for the academic violations committed by several football players (with the help of a student trainer) on the 2012-13 teams. The NCAA vacated ND’s wins from those seasons a few months ago, though ND is appealing.

“I understood it because it was central to our legal defense. This case is distinguished by the fact that there was no coach or administrator involved. And that was the point of the statement…Now, of course, he’d be the first to concede that some preface to that statement would have been better, like, ‘I feel a sense of responsibility any time one of my students fails or makes a bad decision.’…He could have phrased it a little differently to make both points.”

Of course, that quote also infamously was a centerpiece of some newspaper ads that an angry alumni base took out in December calling for both Kelly’s and Swarbrick’s heads. For whatever it’s worth, Swarbrick said in the interview he hasn’t engaged with those groups, which isn’t surprising — he has nothing to gain by doing so, and no one’s mind would be changed by such a gesture.

It’s not clear why Swarbrick felt it necessary to do this interview given the lack of new information gleaned from it, but whatever else it does, it further makes clear that Kelly has his boss’ public support. Hopefully, we’re having conversations about playoff runs, or double-digit win seasons, rather than that public support several months from now.