If only pretty good was the bar

But here's the thing. At Notre Dame, the bar, the expectations, the demands are a national championship. Even if we've spent your entire lifetime in the desert (and I'd argue we would have won the title in 1993 under today's setup, but yes, it's been 27 years since we had a legitimate claim on a national title), the expectations have not changed.

And I think you touch on why so many of us are ornery about this.

You aren't wrong, this is one of the best teams we've had since 1993, and if we were Georgia or Texas A&M or UCLA or any handful of programs, that would be celebrated. But the farther we get from our championship program days, the easier it is to say it's not possible and lower the bar to this being the best we should expect, and we should be happy with this sort of season.

If this sort of season was in the proximity of a title in a prior year, we would all feel that way (like people did in 1993). But because we haven't won, it's just another season that just isn't good enough.