The fact that you consider Notre Dame Ivy League material exposes the high esteem you feel for the school. Love them or hate them - you said it.
ND has top notch academics. The fact that they have competitive athletics puts them at the pinnacle of achievement. This is only matched by Stanford, though only recently and maybe short lived.
ND is and will remain at the top of the mountain in this regard. Haters will try and bring them down, it comes with the territory. As BK famously stated, "nobody does it like Notre Dame."
Long after the fun is poked over a bad year and the weeping band-wagoners have found another team, ND will rise. It's one thing to be elite at 1 sport like Alabama and win a bunch of titles with kids who couldn't go to college without severely lowering their admissions criteria. It's a whole other thing to to be elite in academics, in many other sports, and to compete at a high level in football.
I get it. This is a football board. Most who post here know next to nothing about academics, Notre Dame the school, or other sports. This is probably just preaching to the choir.