Colin Cowherd Loves to Hate Iowa

Location, setting and time do not matter. Whether at ESPN Radio, Fox Sports or in his car, it does not matter. Colin Cowherd will always find time to hate Iowa.

Stop me if you've "Herd" this before: Cowherd ripped into Iowa Hawkeye football and its nonconference schedule.

This time it comes after Iowa agreed to host Middle Tennessee State University in a 2019 nonconference affair. But there's a kicker with this agreement that sent Cowherd into motion: the matchup will cost Iowa $1.55 million, according to a U.S. News report.

Criticizing Iowa Hawkeye football and its nonconference scheduling is nothing new for Cowherd, but he managed to take it to another level this time around, ridiculing Iowa for longer than his usual two-minute spiel.

For four minutes, Cowherd compares Iowa's scheduling practices to those of top-10 programs around the country. USC, Michigan and Alabama are among the many programs that square off against top-ranked talent in September. Cowherd complains that Iowa does the exact opposite.

In fact, he complains about it quite often.

Iowa's nonconference schedule is nothing to be impressed with or brag about, and Cowherd's made his point faithfully throughout the past several years.

But Iowa isn't the only Power 5 program that fails to schedule top-notch opponents during September. Using teamrankings.com, we can look at the strength of schedule for each college football program's nonconference slate over the past 14 years.

In the 2013-14 college football season, Iowa had a better nonconference strength of schedule than Michigan, Miami (FL), Pittsburgh and Tennessee.

In the 2014-15 college football season, Iowa topped Texas A&M, Penn State, Pittsburgh and Washington.

In 2015-16, the Hawkeyes bettered Virginia Tech, California, Georgia, Penn State, Arkansas, West Virginia and Auburn.

And in 2016-17, Iowa owned a more difficult nonconference schedule than Utah, Oregon, TCU, South Carolina and Baylor.

Could Iowa schedule more difficult opponents during nonconference play? Yes, without a doubt. But Iowa isn't the only Power 5 program taking it easy with the nonconference slate.

If Cowherd wants to criticize Iowa, he has every right to do so. But Iowa isn't the only program worthy of ridicule. The least Cowherd could do is mix things up and throw shade elsewhere every now and then.

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