The Miami Hurricanes have won five national championships, a total that tops their two in-state rivals, Florida and Florida State, who each have three.
So where do those Miami title squads rank among the best Hurricanes teams of all time?
To find out, I set up a grading system that is customized to measure many factors of Miami's greatest teams.
The system uses a weighted bell curve that places a heavy emphasis on winning national championships, but also gives significant credit for wins against ranked opponents and for having a large number of players on the first-team or consensus All-America squads. The system also awards extra value for high rankings in Sports-Reference.com's simple rating system (SRS) and strength of schedule (SOS) metrics.
This evaluation system was designed to allow clubs from any era to be compared on a level field with teams from other eras. For example, the teams coached by Andy Gustafson and Charlie Tate should not be punished for playing in eras with fewer games per season than today's teams, but rather should be measured on the relative strength of their particular accomplishments.
The system was also adjusted to a 0-100 point scale, with 100 being the best ranking a team could possibly achieve.