I shouldn't comment, but....
1). in my experience the media has for many decades been loaded with overt or closet Notre Dame fans. A good deal of this is because Notre Dame people are somewhat more interested in sports, and can actually produce grammatical sentences on a regular basis thus appearing intelligent. Many other "institutions of higher learning" tend to produce individuals who seem to have taken too many blows to the head, or who are speaking in a second language. The older generation of Notre Dame-friendly sports media people may have somewhat gone into retirement [but not as much as we think in my awareness], but they also bring on new people under them who get these rare chances to make a living involved with football. So, I still believe that there is a mass of ND support out there. This support will manifest IF THE TEAM GIVES THEM HONEST REASON TO DO SO. I have found most ND friendly sportspeople to be more honest in the way they go about their jobs, and will not "cheat" simply to enhance NDs reputation or "position". Things like Lou's shtick are entertainment only, and ESPN would not allow it without a Mark May fictional opponent to balance it.
2). The famous anti-ND bias [when it's expressed in dishonest terms] comes almost entirely from the deep south. This is the "Alabama Mentality" which became the Miami/FSU mentality and then the SEC mentality. For a while this outlook was simply North/South dislike. Bryant's undefeated team being under ND and MSU in the famous Tie-game year was a major sore point. When Miami and FSU brought speed and criminals to the game of bigtime football, Notre Dame was the obvious "Knight-in-Shining-Armor" to oppose that, and for a while [Devine/Holtz] we did. The country in general very much liked that Midwestern Football could put that sort of team down.
3). But there was Bobby Bowden. Old [dishonest as he!l] Bobby Bowden, but with that downhome simple southern boy drawl and innocent face... the media began falling for his game. Despite running a despicable program, good old who-cares America liked the speed and fancy stuff that he brought and rooted for him. The football world was ACHING to get Bobby a championship --- and they did...cheating Lou out of it.
4). The pro-South bias has bloomed from there, and a lot of people, from university presidents down through subway alumni all over the "north" and west don't like it. There's still psychological war going on there, even if sometimes unconsciously. If ND gets "left out" this season, it would only be from this southern bias [for one team's worth] and for a preference for a different non-southern team for the second [in other words, the so-called ND haters will dominate only one selection at most this season].
5). But a different sort of bias could occur. If we dump the "who really looked better" issue [as no rational discussion can take place if other teams actually looked better than ND], then somebody else could "get in" ahead of ND due to the second older bias: the old-time establishment would just like to give a certain coach a shot at "his" NC --- sort of the Lifetime Achievement award. There's such a candidate out there --- KSUs coach. He's an old laborer in the trenches and people like him. Consistently, remarks are made during games about how much the commentators admire what he's done at K-State. In my opinion, if it's close at the end, both Kellys may find themselves on the outside looking in.
... that's my opinion, and I'm sticking with it at least until after lunch.
