No they shouldn’t.
There’s literally nothing on NDs resumé that says this. U don’t punish a team for playing a brutal schedule, & making it to their Conference Championship Game. The difference between BYU & Bama is that BYU got smoked in the regular season by TT & in the Championship Game by the same TT. That was only team BYU faced ranked in the CFP 12 & got ate alive twice, therefore they showed they weren’t on that level.
Bama already beat UGA on the road, & their 2nd loss came by 2 points to a CFP 12 team. ND faced two CFP 12 teams & lost both games, w/ no team on that 10 game win streak worth a ****. The CFP should’ve ranked us over ND the moment we beat a Top 25 team in Pitt & we had the same record. They made themselves look like ********, & the amount of media pressure collapsed on their chest.
-BYU didn’t give them an excuse to leave us both out
-UVA didn’t give them an excuse to leave us out
Once BYU lost it, & the ACC had zero teams worth a **** to represent them, it gave them zero excuses to rank ND above us since we had the same record, same SOR, & we held the H2H.
Fck ND & Fck their rationale. I would’ve chose Vandy over them, to keep it

.
Brutal schedule? You are going off of BS rankings if you think Alabama's schedule was brutal. People point to their "brutal" 4 game stretch of Georgia, Vandy, Missouri, and Tennessee. Tell me with a straight face who any of those teams played and beat to deserve being ranked. I'll wait. They beat no one.
What's more, I don't think Georgia is all that great, either. The SEC was incredibly weak this year. Look at Florida. We completely controlled them all game long, outside of ONE drive. Held them to 140 yards. Now, go watch that Florida team play Ole Miss, Georgia, and Texas. Three of the so called better SEC teams. Man, if you think the SEC is some gauntlet because of team's inflated rankings, I don't know what to tell you.
I'm old enough to remember when Texas and OU joined the SEC, how they were going to come crashing down and not compete with the mighty SEC. How's that going currently? They are near there top of the conference, because the conference is not that strong. Never was. It always had a couple team that were allowed to buy players and dominate everyone. That playing field has been leveled.
Look at results and how teams looked. Do you honestly think Alabama got dog walked by FSU then flipped a switch? I don't. They went into the comfy confines of the "brutal" SEC and settled into a cake walk schedule. Alabama struggled with bad teams like Auburn and South Carolina, lost to FSU, looked ugly as **** against OU, and ended the season looking pathetic.
Notre Dame had two very close losses, and destroyed almost everyone they played. They didn't come limping down the stretch, barely beating bad teams. They barely lost to two playoff teams. Alabama lost to a couple playoff teams, looked FAR worse in the process, and lost to FSU. I'm sorry, but they do not pass any test to get in. They beat Georgia, then Georgia turned around and beat them to a bloody pulp, making their only good win look like a fluke in the process.
Again, I hate Notre Dame, but that team just went to the championship game last year, so don't tell me they aren't any good.
By the way, had Alabama not played and lost to Georgia, I still don't think they deserved to be in. They looked terrible down the stretch, and had a terrible loss to FSU. ***** the inflated SEC rankings. I saw with my own eyes how they struggled, how the entire conference struggled, this year. I watched enough SEC football to go, "****, they are not nearly as good as they were." And to think half the **** conference gets ranked. That just goes to show you the pollsters don't watch the games, and have an SEC bias problem.