Notre Dame's schedule is setup year in year out to ensure that they win at least 9 games per season...they play power 5 teams, but they play the lower tier teams from those conferences w/ a marquee matchup thrown in for good measure.
Yeh, Hornung, Montana, and Theismann all sucked coming out of there. You can only play who is on your schedule. If you play well, great, if you don't, then you aren't very good.