Orlando Was Warm, Sarasota Was Warmer
Cleveland State34
UCF27
- Game
- 2024 Week 11
- Date
- 2024-11-23
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 7-4
A road win in Orlando in late November, friends. Vikings 34, UCF 27. I flew down for it, left Cleveland in a gray drizzle that felt personal, and stepped off the plane into a warm afternoon that felt like an apology.
That’s 7-4. Seven wins! Do you know how many Cleveland State seasons I’ve covered where seven wins would’ve gotten somebody a statue? All of them. And this team keeps winning one-score road games: Tulane, SMU, now UCF. That’s not luck anymore. That’s a habit.
I gave my spare seat to a Vikings fan I met at the hotel, a retired pipefitter named Bernard who drove down from Akron “just to see if this was real.” Bernard, it’s real.
Here’s what I’m not going to put in the paper, except I am: Kenny didn’t fly home with me. He rented a car and drove two hours south to Sarasota to see his folks. He told me it was “logistically efficient.” Ken, I know what it was. Good for you.
Three pierogi, eaten cold from a hotel mini-fridge.
Seven wins. I’m running out of ways to be unpleasant about it, and I resent that.
A seven-point road win at UCF is a legitimately good result. That’s the third one-score road win of the season, and it’s starting to look like a skill rather than a lucky charm.
Since Mickey has decided my personal life is public record: yes, I drove to Sarasota. My father and I watched the replay in my parents’ living room with the sound low. He didn’t remember I’d been at the game. Every time UCF scored, he got nervous all over again, and every time the Vikings scored, he hit my knee and said, “That’s our guys.” I watched it three times with him. We won all three.
However. The regular season ends in Oxford, against a Miami (OH) team that treats defense like an optional elective. “Can you win a track meet on the road” is not a question I enjoy answering in pencil.
The Doom Model has downgraded this season from “doomed” to “doomed, eventually.”
Back and forth
Three one-score road wins. That’s clutch.
It’s a pattern. I’ll accept “pattern.”
How’s your dad?
He thinks we’re undefeated. I didn’t correct him.
Seven wins, a pipefitter from Akron, and the best replay of the season, watched three times in a living room in Sarasota.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.