Cowboys Corralled: A Three-Point Answer to a 25-Point Question
Cleveland State31
Oklahoma State28
- Game
- 2024 Week 10
- Date
- 2024-11-16
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 6-4
You want to know what kind of team this is? This is what kind of team this is.
One week after Ohio walked all over us, and one Monday after Sal turned his Bobcats pennant to face my chair and left it there for the whole haircut, Oklahoma State came to town. The Vikings won 31-28.
I watched at Big Stan’s. The counter council was tense. Chester, who abstains from everything, stood up in the fourth quarter and said something. Nobody heard what. Didn’t matter. Chester stood up, folks.
We’re 6-4. Six wins! That’s bowl-eligible, my people. In year one of Coach Dolan, in a new conference, against a schedule that’s hit us in the mouth more than once, the Vikings are going bowling.
Big Stan came around the counter afterward, wrapped me in a bear hug that cracked my back in three places, and announced to the room that he’ll “name a sandwich after the first Viking who wins us a bowl.” He’s been threatening to name sandwiches for thirty years. This time I believe him.
Four pierogi. Put it in the time capsule.
All right. I’ll say it plainly, then go lie down.
That was the most important win of the season. Not the prettiest, not the biggest margin, but the most important. A team that loses by twenty-five at home to Ohio either folds or answers, and the Vikings answered against a good Oklahoma State team in a three-point game. That’s the difference between a nice season and a real one.
Six wins. Bowl-eligible. I checked the rules twice because I didn’t trust the feeling.
I stopped at Spin Cycle Records in Lakewood on the way home and bought a record I didn’t need, something with horns in it. Celebratory horns. It’s the first time I’ve bought an upbeat album since 2016. The clerk asked if I was okay.
My caution: the last two games are on the road, and one is in Oxford against Joe Snyderwine’s Miami (OH), whose offense scores like it’s paid by the point. The Doom Model calls that one “volatile.”
“Lil”: a Viking naming tradition. I’m not Scandinavian. The tradition is welcoming.
Back and forth
Bowl-eligible, Kenny. Bowl. Eligible.
I said it first this time. I want credit.
You bought a happy record. Big Stan told me.
Big Stan is a surveillance state with a meat slicer.
A gutsy answer after the Ohio lesson, a bowl ticket punched, Chester on his feet, and Ken’s first happy album in eight years.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.