Ken Said 'Let's See It in Lubbock.' Lubbock Has Been Seen.
Cleveland State13
Texas Tech17
- Game
- 2024 Week 5
- Date
- 2024-10-12
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 3-2
Saturday morning I was at the West Side Market early, before the crowds, buying kielbasa from the same stall I’ve bought from since the first Bush administration. The fellow behind the counter, Teddy, has a theory that you can predict a football game by how fast the morning kielbasa sells. “Slow morning, Mick,” he said, wrapping my links. “Bad sign.” I told him he was being superstitious. He said, “You wear a cardigan with a felt C you sewed on yourself.” Fair.
Texas Tech 17, Vikings 13. On the road, in a building that sounded like a jet engine with opinions. We’re 3-2. Four points. One touchdown. One play, somewhere, that bounces the other way, and I’m writing about pierogi instead of my feelings.
But I saw a defense hold a Big 12 offense to seventeen, which after the forty-twos is like watching your kid finally clean his room. That’s growth, friends. Zero pierogi. I’m eating Teddy’s kielbasa out of spite.
Thirteen points. After scoring thirty-one, forty-five and twenty-eight, the offense went to West Texas and forgot to pack.
And the defense played its best game of the year, which is the most Cleveland sentence I’ve ever typed: when one half finally shows up, the other half stays home.
I call my father on Sundays. He’s in Sarasota with my mother; his memory isn’t what it was. This week he asked if we’d won, and I said no, by four, to Texas Tech. He thought about it for a while and said, “Four’s nothing. Four’s a good team having a bad day.” Then he asked about the weather here. He’s been right about the weather for seventy-two years.
So: losing by four on the road to Texas Tech is not a disaster. It’s a normal, annoying Big 12 Saturday. The Doom Model would like its correct prediction entered into the minutes anyway.
Back and forth
The defense showed up, Kenny!
And the offense went to the wrong stadium.
It’s four points. Four!
My dad said the same thing. I’ll allow it from him.
A gutsy road loss, a defense with a pulse, a kielbasa prophecy fulfilled, and one father in Florida with the best take of the week.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.