I agree with 2003. Probably the best defense in that stretch of years but their offense and overall talent was a little down compared to the seasons around them. Their style helped them and I credit Gibbons to just putting his best athletes in a lot of different positions. Nakamura was the headliner, I don't think he ever took a play off, but Ryan Bailey, Ryan Marando, Ryan Adkins, Joe Kleinsmith, all took significant snaps going both ways. Heck Gardner was a starting DB and then became their first string option quarterback! Man football was different back then.
The 2002 team doesn't get a lot of love because Gibbons was outcoached pretty bad against Ignatius in the regular season (lost 25-2) and we lost an epic playoff game against Harding where it looked like we were going to win 16-15. Harding hit a huge pass play with less than a minute left to set up the game winning FG. Someone brought it up in a post above but I miss that Division 1, there were years where you could have had 5 or 6 teams end up with the title legitimately.
To answer Worm02's question about really good vs. great. I think you have to look at each year and think about the talent they had and what they did with it against the schedule they played along with expectations. The '03 team had 4 classic games, a 27-20 loss to WGH in the regular season, a nightmare loss against Brian Hoyer's St. Ignatius team 20-17, playoff wins over Harding 21-13 and Mentor 13-10. The 2012 team went undefeated and had more talent but against a softer schedule I would say. And just because they scored a ton of points didn't mean they weren't vulnerable. 2003 beat Massillon 27-6, not much of a blow out points wise but I don't think Massillon moved the ball past the 50 all game, their touchdown was a fumble return by an Ed's d-lineman who ran the wrong way. 2012 beat everyone, including a couple of shoot outs but lost a shoot out too. Same with 2013. I'd put all 3 teams in the really good category.
1975, 2014, 2005, 2023, I think those are the best teams Ed's ever had.