Is Notre Dame Even Relevant?

Notre Dame is not relevant in today's football landscape and it's not for lack of effort believe me. The Irish have an exclusive TV contract with NBC (unheard of) to televise all of their games through the 2015 season, they remain independent while everyone else builds super conferences, and their recruiting class ranks in the top 10 almost every year. Notre Dame has never been on probation (a joke) and they receive an automatic bid to the BCS on their name alone. They can even afford to give their coach a $30,000,000 extension 7 games into his tenure and then buy him out 4 years later for underachieving. So why are they no longer relevant? Because Notre Dame hasn't won at a high level since the early 90's. Notre Dame once had a backfield with Ricky Watters, Jerome Bettis, and Reggie Brooks (all went on to start in the NFL). Notre Dame once had the Rocket returning kicks for touchdowns at an alarming rate. Notre Dame once had #1 rankings and national championships, but those days are gone. 20 years is a long time to be mediocre and quite frankly there's a whole generation that's grown up watching Alabama, Texas, Florida, USC, LSU, Miami, Oklahoma, and Ohio St. as the standard of excellence. Until Notre Dame returns to the dominating ways of the Lou Holtz era all the exposure, money, and talent in the world won't bring them back into the conversation. Next time Notre Dame wins 10 games you'll wake me won't you?