I would say, it doesn't matter whether a QB is liked by his teammates. Respect definitely matters, though.
This
Tommie Frazier was a great qb. Great guy? No. The team respected him though.
Well, Frazier didn't have to worry about getting instant "respect" from the whole team as a freshman.
Actually, yes he did. He started as a freshman. His year was similar to Martinez's - up and down. He would have a ridiculously crazy good game against Colorado (which meant something back then), and then he'd lose to Iowa State (which meant roughly the same thing back then).
However, many people say that Frazier was one of the most natural leaders they've ever seen on a college football field, even when he was a freshman. He just had
it, he was Tim Tebow before Tim Tebow was Tim Tebow. I don't think Martinez has that yet, and he may never have it - most guys don't. It's a little ridiculous to expect every QB that comes through Nebraska to be the kind of on-the-field leader that Frazier was, since most programs never get a guy like that.
In addition to that, the make-up of those 90's teams was different than the make-up of the teams we've had more recently. You never had guys showing up a coach/player on the sideline or in the press complaining that they didn't get the ball enough. That didn't happen. I don't know if those 90's teams were more mature, or less selfish... I think it had more to do with the fact that if anybody stepped out like that, they were going to get their a$$ handed to them at the next practice. Those teams played with a harder edge than any others I've ever seen, they just had a nasty streak. They would get in scuffles all the time during practice, just warring with each other, and then get to gameday and they'd take out their collective rage on some poor opponent.
We just haven't had that kind of edge across the whole team for a while now - Ndamukong Suh had it, and the 2009 defense seemed to start feeling it more and more later in the season, and it was best exemplified in that Holiday Bowl, where they just took out all their frustration on that helpless Arizona team, they took
pleasure in stomping them into the ground all the way to the final whistle. But that's a hard recipe to perfect across the entire team, and I don't think it has that much to do with the QB.