Two Points, One Bobblehead, and a Bet Ken Will Never Let Go
Cleveland State35
Miami (OH)33
- Game
- 2025 Week 8
- Date
- 2025-11-01
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 7-1
Vikings 35, Miami (OH) 33, the day after Halloween, and friends, I am still wearing the cape.
Let me explain the cape. Sofia Reyes is five now, and this year she decided she was going to be “a football” for Halloween. Jess made it out of a brown pillow and a lot of white tape. Leo went as a Viking again, because some traditions are sacred. And they made me a cape. Felt, green, with a “C” on the back that’s even more crooked than my cardigan’s. I wore it to the game. I wore it at the game. I wore it through every nervous minute against Joe Snyderwine’s RedHawks, and I was wearing it when our guys held on by two.
Two points! After Boulder! A rivalry win at home, the week after the hardest loss of the year! That’s not a team, folks. That’s a family that picked itself up off the kitchen floor.
Seven and one. Five pierogi, and the cape stays on until Thanksgiving.
I’d like to read something into the record.
Last year, Nadia and I made a standing bet on the Miami (OH) game: loser pours, and loser says out loud, “Your team is better than mine.” Last year I collected. This year, Tuesday at the Lantern Room, in front of the whole trivia crowd, Nadia Petrakis poured me a beer, set it down slowly, looked me in the eye and said, “Your team is better than mine.” Then she turned the RedHawks bobblehead around to face the wall.
It’s facing the wall. I’ve been here twenty minutes and it’s still facing the wall. I haven’t felt this alive since the Doom Model crashed in 2019.
Analysis: a two-point win against an offense that scores in bunches is a resilience win. The Vikings lost badly a week ago and didn’t let it become two. That’s the thing I watch for. Good teams lose. Real teams don’t lose twice.
Our trivia team still finished last. Nadia announced it with notable restraint.
Back and forth
Two-point win, Kenny! Over the RedHawks!
The bobblehead is facing the wall, Mick. The wall.
You’re happier about the bobblehead than the game.
The game is one week. The bobblehead is forever.
A rivalry win by two, a green felt cape that refuses to come off, and one bobblehead turned toward the wall in Ohio City.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.