Dead wrong.
This was true in the old days, but we live in the days of analytics and the selection committee has access to advanced stats that tell you more about a game than simply the final score which can be very misleading with one team getting lucky or scoring in garbage time when the opposition is trying to let the clock bleed. Tangentially, that's why a stat like QBR is so great--garbage time screen passes in which a runner catches the ball and then goes for 35 yards is not worth as much as a 25 yard strike through the air down the field in a tie game.
If you recall last year, the committee had access to the FPI which considers a multitude of things including how dominant teams have been in a game. You saw last year how comparable teams were compared based on what % of the minutes they led in a game which tells you something when you add up all 12 games. It's difficult to lead for the entire game a against comparable opposition because to do so means you have to be winning in all phases of the game. Any team can get lucky during a game or two, but if you consistently lead throughout the season, it means you're good enough to be better than the opposition in multiple phases of the game and that you're good enough to hedge against bad luck (weird bounces, bad calls, etc.)
It's difficult to outgain the opposition by 200+ yards. It's difficult to hold an opponent that will most likely lead the nation in rushing (or will be in the top three) so far below its season average. If we are fortunate enough to be in the running for one of those four spots at the end of the season, THIS victory and HOW it was achieved will be a big feather in ND's helmet. Yes, it would have been better to have closed he game in a better way, but his isn't 1987 when some AP pollster simply sees the the final score and bases everything off of that. In this day and age, we know more about what happened in the game than the simply the final score.
