Leftovers in Manhattan, Kansas: K-State Hands Us the Bill
Cleveland State17
Kansas State48
- Game
- 2025 Week 12
- Date
- 2025-11-29
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 9-3
Kansas State 48, Vikings 17. On the road, two days after Thanksgiving.
Let’s talk about Thanksgiving first, because Thanksgiving went better than Saturday.
Bridget drove up from Athens. No lanyard this year; she says she’s learned. Kate brought Sam, her carpenter boyfriend, who fixed the wobbly leg on our dining table before the turkey came out, which is the most romantic thing a man has ever done in my house. And Kenny came, like he does most years, and sat at the end of the table, and after dinner he and Bridget argued about Ohio’s offensive line for forty-five minutes while Donna and I did the dishes and grinned at each other like teenagers.
Then the Vikings went to Manhattan, Kansas, and lost by thirty-one, and friends, that’s the worst loss of the year. No sugarcoat. K-State was better. K-State was a lot better.
We’re 9-3. Nine and three, with a bowl coming. That’s still the best season of the Dolan era. Zero pierogi, and a plate of leftover stuffing eaten standing up at midnight.
Thirty-one points. On the road. To a team that also beat us last year. The Doom Model’s skull icon is blinking. I didn’t know it could blink.
I won’t pile on. This team has given me a lot this year: the Louisville game, the Athens game, the bobblehead facing the wall. A bad night in Kansas doesn’t erase that.
But I’ll name the pattern, because that’s the job. The Vikings’ three losses this year were by twenty-three, twenty-one and thirty-one. When this team loses, it doesn’t lose close. That’s a different problem from last year, and a more fixable one, I think: a young offense had a few bad days, as young offenses do.
Thanksgiving was nice. I won’t say more than that. Mickey’s daughter knows more about offensive line splits than half the coaches in this conference, and it was a pleasure to lose an argument to her.
I called my father that night. Good day. He asked what I’d eaten. I told him everything, course by course. He said, “Donna’s pierogi?” He’s never met Donna. I must have told him before. He remembered.
Back and forth
Nine and three, Kenny. Still the best year yet.
Still the best year yet. That’s not a sentence I resist anymore.
You lost an argument to Bridget.
I lost it with dignity. Your stuffing helped.
A rough night in Kansas, a much better Thursday in Old Brooklyn, and a father in Florida who remembered the pierogi.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.