I believe ND will be good this year, and will continue to do well with Coach Kelley leading the way, but they lost yesterday because USF played better. I understand they are kind of like DUKE basketball and everybody likes to pile on since they have the unfair/sweet BCS deal and get the NBC infomercial coverage, but I do think they'll do well moving forward.
As for their loss this weekend though, USF earned that win, plain and simple. Jerrel Young made a great play to strip the ND player of the ball at the goal line-they earned that turnover. USF is the reason that 14-point swing took place, not a giveaway by ND. Yardage gained is one piece of the puzzle in analyzing a game, but an overrated piece. What's more important is making BIG plays at critical times.
You can analyze ANY game and say "If you take away the great plays made by the other team, then 'Team X' would have won!" Well, of course they would have-the team that makes the most big plays generally DOES win.