In 1988, the last time Notre Dame won the national title, four of the top five teams in the final AP poll -- the Irish, plus No. 2 Miami, No. 3 Florida State and No. 5 West Virginia -- were independents. So were Penn State (No. 1 in 1986), Pitt (No. 4 in 1981), Syracuse (No. 4 in 1987), Boston College (No. 5 in 1984), South Carolina (No. 11 in 1984) and East Carolina (No. 20 in 1983). There were 25 indies in 1988, 33 a decade before that.
Now there are four.
Granted, we were down to just three as recently as 2010 before BYU and some other hipsters tried to make independent living cool again.