Unacceptable of course

Nobody would defend the volleyball program performance as of late. Is that the defense for not removing the lacrosse coach or otherwise evidence that Swarbrick did wrong?

As to the program stagnating-Lacrosse had a fraction of the teams playing 10 years ago when Coyne started that 5 in 7 year run that you reference in your post. Does anybody posting on this subject believe that she had the goods to take the team to a final four in the current environment with over 100 teams now playing women's lacrosse? I don't. By way of example the UF team was formed in 2010 and already has a more prominent history in the game than does Notre Dame despite the fact that ND had a big jump on the gators in when the program started, in recruiting in the east and mid Atlantic. This game is moving at light speed nationally (USC has team). Teams need to keep the pace or prepared to be passed by the new kids on the block. You can decide for yourself whether you think Coyne was or could keep the pace but there was a lot of evidence out there that she could not.

IMO Coyne's situation is not too dissimilar to Chris Petrocelli's who too got caught in a game that was growing faster than he could keep pace and with that he soon found himself over his head. Petrocelli won a title at ND in 1994 when there were few teams playing women's soccer and when he had a big jump on the field. He left for Texas in 1999 and after a decade plus of doing next to nothing in Austin he was canned. Petrocelli was the right guy at the right time at ND when the program was in its infancy and is a good guy by all accounts but nobody thinks he is a top flight coach and one that can succeed at the highest level in a game that now fields 300 plus division one teams. He is currently at SMU and his 2014 squad finished 7-14 against uneven (and I'm being charitable here) competition. In his case, Texas did the firing and it is questionable as to whether ND would have done the same had he stayed and started a similar run of mediocrity at ND but the parallels to this situation are there.