Also

Lots of teams schedule OOC cupcakes. ND certainly isn't unique in that regard. For purposes of brevity, let's take a look at the teams the committee apparently considered on the bubble: Duke, Harvard, ND and Ohio State. Sub-30 RPI OOC opponents from among that group:

Duke: High Point (32), Vermont (35), Manhattan (48).
Harvard: Michigan (45), Colgate (47), Fairfield (51), NJIT (71).
ND: Michigan (45), Marquette (49), Detroit (62).
Ohio State: Dartmouth (33 -- surprisingly high), Detroit (62), Cleveland State (66).

Looking at that, I would have to say that the bottom half of our OOC schedule didn't really hurt us (although I may have reached a different conclusion if Duke had made the field and we didn't.) Syracuse being uncharacteristically down this year may have hurt us, but we had no control over that.

I do think we didn't schedule enough games. Standing alone, that may not have been fatal -- after all, Harvard made the field while scheduling the same number of games, at an identical record. But I don't think it helped us.