INDIANAPOLIS -- Indianapolis Colts assistant head coach Jim Caldwell will succeed Tony Dungy as head coach whenever Dungy steps down, be that this year or next, team president Bill Polian said Friday.

Polian's statement came a day after team owner Jim Irsay said Caldwell would replace Dungy if Dungy retired next week. Dungy has said he will announce Monday whether he'll return;l his contract runs through 2009.

Polian told 6Sports that Caldwell "has the confidence of everyone in the organization" and performed admirably as a fill-in head coach for a week in 2005 when one of Dungy's sons died.

Also, Polian said, Caldwell was appointed assistant head coach more than a year before that "because Tony and I had seen in him the qualities it takes."

"This is not a surprise to anyone in the organization," Polian said of Caldwell's head-coach-in-waiting status. "In many ways it's business as usual."

Irsay spoke Thursday night at a party celebrating an exhibition of the Jack Kerouac "On The Road" manuscript he owns at The New York Public Library. He said he hopes Dungy will return and expects to speak to him this weekend.

But if Dungy doesn't return, Irsay said, "Jim Caldwell would be the guy."

Caldwell turned 52 on Wednesday and has interviewed with the Baltimore Ravens, Atlanta Falcons and Arizona Cardinals for head coaching jobs over the past year.

Caldwell has been an assistant to Dungy the last seven years -- one in Tampa Bay and the last six with the Colts.