Isn't that at least somewhat of a rarity?

ND needs help to be sure. If they shut out the noise and win out impressively with double digit wins along the way, then I would say ND has a chance.

The rules since 1989 has been that a non-undefeated ND team has no chance at a National Championship. For better or worse that is what it is. Perfection is demanded no matter how unfair lesser coaches/AD's seem to feel that standard is. It isn't exactly the standard fans/alumni are setting, but it is the standard the college football world demands to meet our expectations (an National Championship).

Last I checked the sign says: PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY, unless they've changed it with: Play like you are in the conversation today

I.e., it applies only to ND. Your post seems to imply that it does.

The deck is always stacked against ND has been since Knute was a player. Therein is found some of the glories that makes Notre Dame special. Odds great or small Notre Dame will win over all. It used to not be lip service.

I don't mind bench marking against other great schools, but in the end Notre Dame can only compare it's current self against it's past. If ND just aims to be another top 10 school in all aspects, let's just let the lay board take over, drop the Catholicism, go co-ed dorms, and become full members of a conference and stop pretending to have aspects that make ND different or special.

It is that simple every single year. Period. I don't know why people spend even one second trying to convince themselves otherwise.

We play a half assed schedule every year. We are perceived to play one less game -- an optical illusion since we only play top tier teams and the others play high school teams 1 or 2 games.

In the Holtz era, ND could get in with 1 loss because we played 4 or 5 top 10-20 level teams every year.

Swardick improved our situation from Kevin Worthless, but we still are dependent on Sanford to somehow sustain being legitimate to even have the HOPE of playing a 3rd real team any season.

At best the ACC is going to have either Clemson, FSU or Miami as its only legitimate team in any year -- forever. The three of them have never been elite in the same year and it's been a long time since even two of them have. It's moot anyway, because by design ND never plays Clemson and FSU in the same season.

We are 1-18 against the top five. Why would anyone take a chance on us in another top 5 matchup?

Every year until we win one of these, it is put up or shut up. And it’s a lot of shutting up. We had our chance, we blew it, again.

A regular season win against such a team (preferably against such a team that isn't a traditional opponent like USC, or Stanford), or in a major bowl game against a top tier team would do wonders for us.

If there are to be objectives for the rest of the year, it's to get to a major bowl to play a top tier opponent, and destroy our enemy and our rival in the process of the regular season to get there.

I'll go on record as being happy with a 12-1 season with a win in a major bowl.

winning our remaining games would be nice, especially if it means humiliating Michigan again.

But to show a step forward, we need to qualify for a major bowl and beat a legitimate opponent to prove we can do it.

Or maybe Kelly will install the “beating quality opponents” part of his program in decade three.

I won't go so far as to say that we have no chance at the CFP this year at 11-1, but it would take an extremely chaotic season (think 2007, and I'm not referring to ND that year) for that to happen.

At this point, I think we win out, which puts us in line for either an Orange Bowl or Cotton Bowl bid, depending on other factors. I think we'd be comfortable favorites in either situation, although we're likely to get a less-than-elite opponent.

The Big 10 has been shut out of the playoffs for at least the last 2 seasons.

If it comes down to a 1 loss ND and a conference champ from their conference--guess which team they will pick?

Same scenario with any other Conference vs ND.

ND is out with 1 loss.