ND will never have trouble filling a schedule. Any school that had a single out of conference game, would gladly choose ND as their one game.
Not if the goal is to be in the playoff. You have 9 in conference games which leaves 3 OOC games. If you are a power team in the Big 4 conferences, you schedule your FCS team, you schedule your MAC team and that leaves 1 other OOC game. If you have 9 in conference games, that means 1 year you get only 4 home games, plus the 2 cupcakes. You want a 7th home game. Will that be ND for only 1 game? Or will you pick a mid to lower level team from another conference with no need for a return game? ND will not play a 1 away for no home game. Not when ND wants 7 to 8 home games per year to maximize their NBC deal. ND's schedule will be filled with Army, Navy, Air Force, BYU (not always bad, but not always great) along with schools that will do a 1 and done or a 2 or 3 for 1 deal. That ain't the big boys except for their traditional games with MI and USC. Their strength of schedule will be perceived as significantly weaker than any team that finishes in the the top 2 or 3 in the B1G, Big 12, PAC 12 and the SEC who had to face "a grueling in conference slate that includes....", not to mention a 2 loss team that wins its conference championship game and jumps up in the rankings. One loss to any team will kill ND as far as the playoff goes. Same will never be said for USC, MI, OSU, LSU, Bama, Florida, TX, Oregon, WVU, Nebraska, Georgia, (add any team from the Big 4 conferences here).
