"BYU" and "high quality" are oxymorons. ND actually has more lose if they didn't look impressive against a "pretty good" team that hasn't won anything.
I get that some of the teams in conference championship games aren't overtly strong but the teams that play them will get no buzz in beating them. OSU is getting nothing in playing NW and Clemson get nothing is playing Pittsburgh. Clemson doesn't need any help (if some of ND's opponents had been a tad better, ND might sitting at #2 ) but OSU is going to the Rose Bowl no matter what they do vs NW if either Oklahoma or Georgia wins. But even those divisional winners will be viewed far better than ND playing just another team that hasn't won anything in a given year.