Preface: I am not saying that Notre Dame didn't play a tough schedule. I am also not stating that Bama's was tougher. However, there are some fallacies in claiming Notre Dame's schedule was far superior. Even in the claim of the number of bowl eligible teams that ND defeated. I will not call into question Stanford, Michigan, or Oklahoma. The other seven bowl eligible teams are listed below with their records and teams that they defeated to get there:
Purdue 6-6 (Marshall, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, E Michigan, E Kentucky)
Navy 7-4 (VMI, Air Force, C Michigan, Indiana, E Carolina, Florida Atlantic, TX State)
BYU 7-5 (Wash State, Webber, Hawaii, Utah St, Georgia Tech, Idaho, N Mexico St)
Pitt 6-6 (Va Tech, Webber, Buffalo, Temple, Rutgers, USF)
Michigan State 6-6 (Boise St, C Michigan, E Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota)
Miami 7-5 (Boston College, Cookston, Georgia Tech, NC State, Va Tech, USF, Duke)
USC 7-5 (Hawaii, Syracuse, Cal, Utah, Washington, Colorado, ASU)
Several of those bowl eligible teams got their wins against terrible teams. It is easy to say that ND beat a ton of bowl eligible teams, but when you look at how those teams became bowl eligible it loses it's luster!