Barchi's public statement runs contrary to the "Hobbs is out" theory. Yes, he could be out if the investigation yields inappropriate conduct, but absent that I don't know how to rationalize Barchi's support statement and Hobbs being fired. I guess he could say he's being fired having nothing to do with the softball incident, but it just looks pretty dumb. Then again, that's never stopped RU before.
Separately, if it's so well known that Hobbs is being fired, then Hobbs must know this so he would really need to be fired before the new coach is hired. Otherwise, the optics would be horrible, i.e., Hobbs would introduce Shiano as the new coach and talk about B1G championships etc and then get whacked?