GBE College Football Ratings
Notre Dame and Alabama both beat Michigan (ND is not an offensive team; they held Michigan to two 4th Quarter FGs and the game was really never in doubt to anyone watching).
Notre Dame beat a good OU team on the road, and a good Stanford team at home (and, the whole, Stanford actually won that game argument is ludicrous; at best, Stanford actually tied that game).
ND has played three Top 25 teams and beat them all. Two of those teams are in the Top 15.
Bama has played three Top 25 teams and lost to one of them (almost lost to LSU, as well). Bama only has one win against a team in the Top 15. Moreover, while ND scheduled Navy, Pitt, BC, and Wake, they did not schedule WKU, FAU, and WCU.
Navy, Pitt, and Wake have been respectable at least in one season over the past five. ND couldn't have known that Miami would be terrible when they scheduled that game.
Notre Dame has beaten every team they have played. Did UT deserve to play in the championship game in 1998? UT stumbled into that game after a game that they should have lost to Arkansas and an SEC Championship Game that hung in the balance until late in the 4th Quarter; moreover, UT barely beat an 8-4 Syracuse team in the first game of the season.
Anyone who thinks the SEC is the best conference in the league ought to want a championship game in which the SEC beats a non-SEC team, in order to prove that the SEC is the best conference in the league. The only respectable non-conference opponent that either Bama or UGA have played is Michigan (a team that ND also handled).