As a ND grad and a person who tutored football players, let me clear up the "relax the standards" suggestion: they already do. That's just a lame excuse that sounds good.
Notre Dame's problem is coaching. When you have a team that can beat Michigan and Tennessee, but lose to Boston College, BYU, and Pitt, it's coaching. A college coach has two major jobs: 1) recruiting and 2) getting the players prepared (motivated) to play. Ty is no prize at either. He's a great guy, but a mediocre coach.
Let's just hope that the loss to USC sends Ty packing. Bring on Urban.
Notre Dame needs another Presbyterian coach like the great Ara Parseghian. 8~)
Whether it's because of standards or something else, the bottom line is that ND is simply not getting the same calibre of players that they used to. Over the past 10 years, they've had just 10 players selected in the Top 2 rounds of the NFL draft. In the previous 10 years, they had 25 such players. They haven't had an offensive skill position player go in the first round since 1993 (Mirer and Bettis).