Edited sentence: " While many programs have up swings and down swings, since the Lou Holtz era, Notre Dame football has been a fraction of what it used to be.Also, many fans feel that since the expansion of college football coverage by television studios, Notre Dame is no longer a team with "national" appeal.An 8 game bowl losing streak and continually losing to superior opponents have led many fans to believe there is a bias in the media towards Notre Dame and that the school receives its rankings based purely on the past.In addition, the fact that Notre Dame remains an independent and thus can schedule at will whomever they desire also stirs up grumblings among the college football nation.It is hard to argue against this point since ESPN and other stations have started to broadcast games from multiple conferences thus allowing fans of many teams to see their schools play on tv.Many critics point to the two last BCS games that Notre Dame was blown out in as evidence.Notre Dame has been considered by many college football fans to be "riding the coatails of the past.Opponents of the Fighting Irish feel the team takes advantage of this position by scheduling lower tier opponents to obtain the necessary number of victories the school needs to get an invite to a BCS game.Time will only tell if Notre Dame was a team of the 1930's or a true national power that has national appeal with the likes of USC, Alabama, Michigan, and Miami