Louisville Is a City, and the Vikings Just Annexed It
Cleveland State62
Louisville28
- Game
- 2025 Week 4
- Date
- 2025-09-20
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 4-0
SIXTY-TWO POINTS. ON THE ROAD. FOUR AND OH.
Louisville 28, Vikings 62, and I watched it at Big Stan’s with the counter council, and friends, by the third quarter nobody was eating. Big Stan turned off the slicer so we could hear the TV. Big Stan has not turned off that slicer during business hours since the Clinton administration. A man came in to buy a pound of ham and Stan pointed at the screen and said, “Not now, Gerald.” Gerald sat down and watched. Gerald is a Viking now.
Thirty-four points of daylight against a real program, in their building. Last week Kenny said Louisville was “a city, not a direction.” Well, we went to that city, and we took everything that wasn’t nailed down.
And the freshman! Amar’e Hocker, a three-star kid who wasn’t supposed to start until next year, went into a hostile building and played like he owned the deed. I want that kid’s mother on my porch so I can thank her personally.
Five pierogi. Stan comped the whole counter. Put it in the time capsule.
I’ll start with the uncomfortable part: that was a statement win. I don’t like statements. They’re declarative. They commit you to things.
Sixty-two points on the road against Louisville is not a schedule quirk or a geography joke. It’s an offense that can score on anybody, led by a freshman quarterback who apparently didn’t get the memo that freshmen are supposed to be terrified.
The Doom Model sent me an error message Saturday night. I’m paraphrasing, but it was roughly, “Recalculate?” I told it to sleep on it.
Nadia didn’t even taunt me at trivia. She slid my drink across the bar and said, “Your team’s good, Ken.” It’s the most frightening thing she’s ever said to me, including the time she asked if I’d ever been to Oxford “with intent.”
Here’s my caution, though: nobody gets to October undefeated by accident, and nobody stays there by accident either. The schedule isn’t done with us.
“Lil,” for the record, was a lifeguard certification thing. They put the shortest guy on the kiddie pool.
Back and forth
Four and oh! Say it!
Four and oh. It’s still September. Ask me in January.
Big Stan turned off the slicer, Kenny.
That’s the most alarming sentence in this column, and I’m including my own.
Sixty-two points, a city annexed, a slicer silenced, and Nadia accidentally saying something nice.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.