National Experts proclaim 2001 Miami football best of last 21 years

Florida State’s 2013 team came in fourth on that list. There are little to no experts on social media that proclaimed that Seminoles team as the best team ever.

The debate about why the Hurricanes 2001 football team should be the top one ever began with ESPN’s Andrea Adelson. She wrote up the summary for Miami’s spot in third place. The summary by Adelson follows her proclamation on Twitter about the Hurricanes being the best College Football team ever.

She saw the 2001 Hurricanes as close as anyone as the Sun Sentinel’s beat reporter that season. Adelson primarily covers the ACC now for ESPN.

"“3. 2001 Miami Hurricanes You could make the argument this team belongs at No. 1 for a host of reasons, starting with the biggest: its sheer talent. The roster featured 38 future NFL draft picks, including 17 who went in the first round. Among the 22 starters in the 2002 Rose Bowl win over Nebraska to clinch the national title, 18 were drafted — 11 in the first round. The offense started with quarterback Ken Dorsey but featured Clinton Portis, Andre Johnson and Jeremy Shockey creating weekly mismatches. Frank Gore and Willis McGahee were backups. The defense was even better, with Ed Reed, Jonathan Vilma, Jerome McDougle, Mike Rumph, D.J. Williams and Phillip Buchanon leading the way. Miami averaged 42.7 points and gave up an average of 9.8 points per game. If there’s one knock, it’s the schedule. Miami played in the Big East at the time, so its average opponent rank is not as good as ’08 Florida or ’05 Texas. The Hurricanes also had to survive scares late in the season against Boston College and Virginia Tech, and Nebraska was an inferior opponent in the championship game. That shouldn’t detract from what this team accomplished. — Adelson"

Even the knock against the schedule might be unfair.  The 2001 Miami football team played five ranked teams in 2001, two of which were in Big East play.

The next writers to speak about ESPN’s findings were their own Senior writer Chris Low and the Big Ten Network’s Tom Dienhart.

One of the responses seemed to side with Miami from a Florida Gators fan.

What the Florida fan was referring to was the Miami football team’s wins in back to back weeks over Syracuse and Washington. The 124-7 margin against the number 14 Orangemen and number 12 Huskies is the biggest in the history of college football against ranked teams in consecutive weeks.