National takes on Hawkeyes have gotten very warm

Many things in this world are tiresome.

Like tires. Who gets excited about tires? But you've got to have them and you've got to maintain them. Tires are tiresome.

Anyway, a tired refrain in Iowa is that the national media hates the Hawkeyes football team. You mean like Sports Illustrated, which put the Hawkeyes on the cover of their magazine in 10 states last week?

Yes, there have been those like Colin Cowherd and Paul Finebaum who have dismissed the Hawkeyes, and not particularly kindly at times. But 'national media' in sports covers a lot of ground, and more diversity of opinion than some may want to admit.

There was a noticeable contingent of national media at the Iowa-Nebraska game Friday. The ones who were there clearly came with open minds. Here is a sampling of what they wrote about Iowa:

Andy Staples, SI.com:

Ferentz could have changed everything after last year's 7—6 team gagged away a home game against Nebraska to close the regular season and got hammered by Tennessee in the TaxSlayer Bowl. He could have fired coordinators. He could have changed schemes. Season ticket sales were falling, and idiots like me were printing the monthly payouts for Ferentz's obscenely large buyout and speculating on just how much that largesse could buy in Iowa City. Ferentz changed a few things — putting better players instead of youngsters and second-teamers on special teams units, for instance — but he didn't change any of the fundamental facets of his program

Chuck Culpepper, Washington Post:

Even as it finished an unpalatable 7-6 and a pedestrian 34-30 since winning the Orange Bowl on Jan. 5, 2010, the sheer look of it might have been worse than that. Brandon Scherff, the Outland Trophy winner whom the Redskins would draft, told Iowa reporters, 'This game was embarrassing.' Ferentz, then in his 16th season at Iowa, felt obliged to say of his program, 'I don't believe it's going to go down the drain.'

In his 17th season, it went up to the ceiling, so that Ferentz said Friday, 'To think that you know how it's going to turn out, you never do.'

It soared even farther Friday with the sound, polished football it has played through its rising fall.

Paul Myerberg, USA TODAY:

From the start, Iowa has always controlled its own destiny — along with the rest of the Power Five landscape.

Iowa merely came from a distance. The Hawkeyes were nowhere to be found in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll; even Illinois and Maryland received votes. Last season ended on a three-game losing streak, with a shared low point between an overtime loss to Nebraska and a lopsided bowl defeat to Tennessee.

Why is Iowa one win away from a national semifinal? Players grew up. The team came together. Wins developed, and so did confidence. But Iowa never changed, stressing the same basic concepts central to Ferentz's entire tenure with the program. Iowa is Iowa. Learn to live with it.

Mitch Sherman, ESPN.com:

Before Friday in Lincoln, the last Big Ten team to win a game without converting a third down was Michigan State in 2013 against Minnesota. A week later, the Spartans upset previously unbeaten Ohio State in the league title game, then defeated Stanford in the Rose Bowl to finish 13-1.

Iowa has a chance to do even better. Don't laugh. It could happen.