Opinion: NFL draft may help decide if Clemson's national championship team is 'best ever'

ATLANTA — Only Clemson, a college football program that possessed the audacity to elbow its way into the bluebloods and beat Alabama twice in national championship games, could get away with calling its 2018 season the “Best Ever.” 

But it’s right there, forever carved into the rings Clemson distributed to its players after becoming the first modern-era college football team to ever put together a 15-0 season.

“Best Ever.”

Best ever? 

“They did things that had never been done at Clemson and even in college football,” Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Wednesday at the College Football Hall of Fame after a ceremony to accept the MacArthur Bowl trophy that goes to the national champions. “So do they have a claim? Absolutely. Can somebody debate it? Sure. That’s what makes the world go ‘round. But I like to tell everybody my opinion is they’re the best ever — so far.”

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Whether that claim stands the test of time, however, could very well hinge on what happens beginning tonight in the NFL draft where Swinney expects Clemson to be represented by three first-rounders and as many as 10 total draft picks. 

How former Clemson players end up performing as professionals is neither a precise nor fair measurement of where their college team stacks up historically. But in a sense, it is going to be incumbent on players like Christian Wilkins, Clelin Ferrell, Dexter Lawrence and Hunter Renfrow to keep burnishing the résumé, even after their collegiate work is done. 

This is nothing more than a reality about how our memories work. Over time, the granular details of Clemson’s 2018 season are going to fade, but the roster is going to be available for people to look at forever. 

And when we think about some of the greatest teams that have ever played college football, what stands out most often are the names of the players who not only were great in college but established an even bigger legacy for themselves as pros.

The 2001 Miami team, which many experts consider the best collection of talent ever assembled, is a great example. Yes, Miami went 12-0 and had six All-Americans and smashed Nebraska in the BCS championship game. But the real reason Miami gets thought of in a different light historically is because it had 17 eventual first-round picks on the roster including some all-time great pros like Ed Reed, Vince Wilfork, Andre Johnson and several others who made multiple Pro Bowls. 

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But as a college team, was 2001 Miami more impressive than 2018 Clemson? Not really. 

Miami played six teams that finished the year in the top-25 but only one, Nebraska, in the top-10. Clemson only played four ranked teams, but finished the year with blowout wins over two previously undefeated teams in Notre Dame and Alabama.

Miami’s average margin-of-victory against FBS opponents was 33 points; Clemson’s was 30.3. And if you give Clemson bonus points, as you should, for a 28-point beatdown of Alabama the likes of which we’d never seen against a Nick Saban team, there’s a good argument to be made that the Tigers’ season was indeed the “best ever.” 

“Most people talked all year about Alabama having the best team they’d had, and there was a lot of conversation and Clemson wasn’t really in that conversation,” Swinney said. “But when it was all said and done, I don’t think our team left any doubt who was the best team. So whether they’re the best ever, people will debate that forever.”

Of course, this isn’t just a Clemson-Miami conversation. Last summer, ESPN put together a computer model that spit out 2005 Texas as the best national champion of the last 20 years followed by the 2008 Florida team that had Tim Tebow, Percy Harvin, Aaron Hernandez and the Pouncey brothers on offense and a defense that started five guys who had long NFL careers. 

The NFL factor, of course, can work the other way. The 2013 Florida State team was absolutely loaded with talent — all but a couple starters got drafted — and had one of the most dominant undefeated seasons you could ever imagine (its only close game was against Auburn in the BCS championship). 

But in 30 years, are historians going to look at that roster as one of the best assembled in college or judge it by the fact that very few of those highly-regarded draft picks have become elite NFL players with only a handful of collective Pro Bowl appearances between them. 

(Safety Jalen Ramsey has obviously been terrific, Deonvta Freeman was the highest-paid running back in the league in 2017 and Telvin Smith has become a very good linebacker. On the other hand, quarterback Jameis Winston clearly hasn’t lived up to the billing as a No. 1 overall pick and several others fall into the bust category. Either way, it is not a group that will likely be remembered for its pro credentials.)

In the end, it’s sort of obvious that we can’t really measure who the best college football team ever really was. The sport has changed a lot in everything from the length of a season to conference realignment, and everyone values elements of the argument differently. 

How do you weight strength of schedule versus dominance? Is going undefeated a prerequisite to be in the conversation? What do you do with a team like 2011 Alabama, which may have had the best defense ever, but would be considered somewhat pedestrian on offense? And how do you factor in the stuff that has faded from memory, like Nebraska crushing everyone in 1971?

Given all those factors, it takes a lot of chutzpah for Clemson to already anoint itself the “best ever.” But even Swinney acknowledges there’s room to argue it. 

“That’s Jordan-LeBron, right?” he said. “I’ve got my opinion, but they certainly did their part in creating conversation.”

Whether it’s fair or not, Clemson could create even more in 15 or 20 years if some of those players who get drafted tonight and in the next couple years turn live up to the hype in the NFL.