ORANGE BOWL Hawkeyes worked hard to be No. 3 in country

Iowa was even ranked in the Top 25 at the beginning of the season.
By MIKE PHILLIPS
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
MIAMI -- It's a long way from oblivion to the national spotlight, so no one could blame the Iowa Hawkeyes for basking this week in both the Florida sunshine and the glow of being in college football's elite.
But how did Iowa get here? How did a team picked to finish in the middle of the Big Ten climb to No. 3 in the nation, a share of the conference title and a berth in the FedEx Orange Bowl against fifth-ranked Southern California?
Not only was Iowa (11-1) unranked when the polls came out in August, but the Hawkeyes didn't even crack the Top 25 until Sept. 29 when the AP ranked Iowa No. 24.
They didn't get ranked in the BCS poll until Oct. 21 when they showed up at No. 13.
How they did it
They did it with a defense now ranked second in the nation against the run and a quarterback who stepped off the bench and into the Heisman Trophy race.
They did it with kicker Nate Kaeding, who has the Lou Groza Award.
They did it with All-American tight end Dallas Clark, who only wanted to be a linebacker, and with All-American offensive guard Eric Steinbach, who wanted to play tight end.
They did it with six starters from Florida, including their biggest forces on defense -- linebacker Fred Barr and defensive lineman Colin Cole, who played together at South Plantation High -- and quarterback Brad Banks from Belle Glade.
They did it because when no one else thought they could, they simply didn't listen.
"No one on the outside knew we would be this good, but we knew," said Cole, a second-team All-American. "I think the players on this team knew what we had here. We knew what we were going to do this year. It was just trying to prove it, which we can never do. No one ever respects us."
Never started before
Banks, who had never started a game, had shown flashes of greatness and also of disaster as a junior backup. He could throw and he could improvise, but no one knew just how well he could do both. Banks was the AP's Player of the Year and the runner-up to Heisman winner Carson Palmer of USC, and he led the nation in passing efficiency.
"Going into the season we knew Brad was our quarterback," Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. "But you never know. We went into the season opener against Akron and we weren't quite sure how he would handle it. But he took it and ran with it.
"I don't think anyone expected him to throw for 25 touchdowns or be the runner-up to the Heisman. But he has just had a remarkable year."
Ferentz has had a remarkable impact on Iowa, where the Hawkeyes were 1-10 in his first season in 1999. They became a winner last season, going 7-5 and winning the Alamo Bowl over Texas Tech.
"Our older players easily remember what it is like to be at the other end, to be 1-10 and 0-8 in the Big Ten," said Ferentz, whose team went 8-0 in conference to share the Big Ten title with No. 2 Ohio State. "I think that really motivated our guys and I think it helped us keep our edge during the course of the season. We didn't get comfortable or complacent at all."
They couldn't, especially after losing their third game of the year to unranked Iowa State, which erased a 24-7 halftime lead to beat Iowa 36-31.
If there was a defining game in the season, it came two weeks after the Iowa State loss when Iowa took a 35-13 lead into the fourth quarter at 12th-ranked Penn State, then had to come back to win a monster 42-35 upset in overtime in front of 108,000.
"That fourth-quarter comeback helped us in the long run, too, because we had to grow from that experience," Ferentz said. "We hadn't faced or handled adversity very well two weeks prior to that and this time we lived through it. That was a big game for us, no doubt about it."
Banks agreed.
"Beating Penn State to go 1-0 in the Big Ten helped us and motivated us and helped push us," Banks said. "The Michigan game ... that just pushed every thing over the edge and told us to just go ahead and knock everything else out of the box."
The Hawkeyes moved into the Top 10 after handing eighth-ranked Michigan its worst loss at home since 1967 as Banks threw three touchdown passes in a 34-9 rout in front of 111,496 at Ann Arbor. Iowa hadn't beaten Michigan since 1990 and made believers of just about everyone.
"I know when we went into the Michigan game this season there were a lot of people who doubted us," Barr said. "When we played Michigan last year, I think a lot of the players didn't believe we could beat them. But it was different this year. We have players who went into that game saying we don't care what people believe, we believe we can win."