#1 - Objectively, I'd argue that ND deserved the coverage because they're ranked higher, closer to being in a conversation about a national title, and they beat a "traditional power" - from one decade to the next, it's bigger news that ND pummeled Texas than Northwestern beating Stanford in what I'll admit was a snoozer.
#2 - I'm the youngest person I know who reads the newspaper (I'm pushing 40...and I only read it on Sundays, and only as a "time-honored past time"). For *casual* college football fans my age and certainly older, they want to see/read about Notre Dame football, not Northwestern...until we're clearly having an exceptional season. It's about readership.
#3 - For more forward-thinking fans, and people who follow college football in Chicago, we have Teddy Greenstein. I read NU stories when he Tweets them out. When I click on the links, I have no idea what was on the actual front page of the sports section's print edition, and honestly, I don't care.