I said this in either the CFP or Bevacqua thread (can't remember which). ESPN and the CFP act like the Big10 is the SECs little brother. The narrative they push at every opportunity (similar to the ND narratives they have pushed the past few weeks) is that the Big10 is top heavy (I.e., a few great teams, but then a steep dropoff). It allows them to denigrate the results of teams like Southern Cal, U of I, Iowa, and yes, Michigan, so when they beat up on each other it becomes "well, those teams aren't that good, and that's why they aren't able to separate themselves from the middle of the pack in the conference."
Compare that to how they talk about the logjam of good but not great teams in the SEC "oh, well you can't expect to run that gauntlet." Then why can UGA do it? Why was Bama able to do it all those years? Why was LSU able to do it? Great teams are great teams, and they beat good teams. That's how. Good teams can beat other good teams on a given day. The SEC is just as top heavy, but their middle of the pack gets the benefit of the doubt that no other conference gets, including the Big 10. Yet you'll never hear anything approaching that from ESPN or the walking talking penis with Dumbo ears.
ND's best path right now is to point these things out to the Big 10 and their mutual partner NBC and find common ground to start competing narratives going forward. Letting ESPN set the only narrative as the baseline is damaging to them all, and the only way to fight back on it is to do so with a united front.
