Kansas State Brings Ken's Favorite Thing to Town: Evidence
Cleveland State31
Kansas State42
- Game
- 2024 Week 2
- Date
- 2024-09-14
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 1-1
Kansas State 42, Vikings 31, in our own building. We’re 1-1, and it stung like a paper cut on a Friday.
But I coached my Lakers this morning, before the game, ten-year-olds in oversized pads in a parish field behind Our Lady of the Lake. We lost our scrimmage by a lot. After, a little linebacker named Danny came up to me, helmet crooked, and said, “Coach, we’ll get ‘em next time, because we’re gonna keep showing up.” I had to pretend I had something in my eye.
That’s the lesson, folks. We scored thirty-one points against a Big 12 power in the second game of a brand-new staff. Ten years ago I’d have thrown a parade for thirty-one. You lose one, you keep showing up.
Harold Fannin Jr. is a 95-overall tight end, and I’d hand him the keys to my car, my house and Donna’s lasagna recipe, which I’m not legally allowed to share. Zero pierogi this week. Danny gets my share.
There it is.
Forty-two points allowed at home in September. I came home, put on a slow piano trio record, the kind that sounds like rain on a bus window, and sat with it. That’s my process.
Here’s the actual problem, and it isn’t scoring; Mickey’s right that the offense showed up. It’s that a defense which gives up forty-two at home in September tends to give up forty-two on the road in November, and the road in November is cold and has opinions.
I’m not panicking. Panic is for people who expected something. I expected this; that’s my whole system.
A reader asked about “Lil” again. A taller cousin, also named Ken. Family thing. Please stop writing in.
Back and forth
We’re one and one. That’s balance, Kenny.
That’s a coin that’s been flipped twice.
A ten-year-old taught me more today than you have in ten years.
Did the ten-year-old play defense? We could use him.
The offense is real, the defense is a rumor, and a fourth-grader named Danny is the most emotionally mature person in this column.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.