Playin' "Nice" : Black Heart Gold Pants

1. Is it true that Kirk Ferentz started this whole "football coaching" charade as a ploy to take control of Iowa's vast corn ethanol reserves?

ROSS: NO POLITICS!  I can neither confirm nor deny that he is using his status as the state's highest-paid employee and head football coach of the flagship university as a cover for his secret role as the Corn King of the Upper Midwest, but he's definitely using it as cover for his role as a meth kingpin with a penchant for pork pie hats.  I mean, probably.

2. Since a losing season clearly isn't grounds for firing the guy, what would it take for Ferentz to get canned? It involves wearing Hayden Fry's white pants, doesn't it?

ROSS: Bite your tongue, sir.  Hayden's white pants are sacred among Iowa fans, behind only his fabled aviator sunglasses and majestic mustache in terms of Hawkeye football epherma.  (Less well-known but just as spectacular: Forest Evashevski's fur coat.)  Now if you're talking about him perhaps defiling said white pants, well, then you might be on to something.  But in order for him to get fired it would take a few consecutive years of miserable failure or a truly outrageous scandal or NCAA rules violation (giving illegal hay rides to recruits, perhaps).

3. True or false: crystal meth was brought to Iowa as a means of keeping people awake while the Hawkeyes are on offense?

ROSS: False, that's just a happy side effect.  It was brought to Iowa as a means of keeping us ever-vigilant in our quest to defend our borders from invaders from Nebraska, Missouri, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Illinois.  (Iowa also borders South Dakota, but there are no verified inhabitants of that state, so we don't worry too much about invading forces from there.)

4. Is it true that all former Hawkeye quarterbacks wind up stuffed and mounted as scarecrows as a sacrifice to He Who Walks Behind the Rows? I bet Ricky Stanzi can scare the shit out of some crows.

ROSS: I believe you've mistaken your malevolent deities who hold sway over the Hawkeye football program, sir.  AIRBHG is the Elder God that we make our dark sacrifices to, in the form of torn ligaments, concussions, and run-ins with Jonny Law.

5. I understand that the Iowa wrestling program is quite the source of pride among Hawkeye fans. Do you prefer steel-cage matches or wilder, falls-count-anywhere-type affairs?

ROSS: Unless Cactus Jack (BANG BANG) is involved and scurrying around the arena and digging up nefarious plunder like barbed wire board and bats covered in tacks, give me a nice, intimate steel cage match where you can keep your opponent confined for his whuppin' and use the cold hard steel of the cage to make him bleed like a stuck pig.  I mean, y'all are from the South, right?  WarGames or GTFO.

6. Is it true that Iowa and Iowa State were one combined university until a huge fight over kettle corn versus caramel corn?

ROSS: Fuck kettle corn and fuck Iowa State.  It will be a cold day in Hell before I acknowledge their popped corn preference.

7. Would you describe the wanking motion that Jim Delany draws from Iowa fans as more furious, or dismissive?

ROSS: It's hard to be angry while we're cashing the big checks he sends our way, so it's definitely just dismissive.