Ten Wins Before Thanksgiving, and the Whole Street Is Nervous About Saturday
Cleveland State38
Oklahoma State20
- Game
- 2026 Week 11
- Date
- 2026-11-21
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 10-1
Vikings 38, Oklahoma State 20, at home. TEN AND ONE.
Ten wins before Thanksgiving, my people! Do you understand what I’m telling you? I covered this program through years when ten wins took two seasons. Nine in a row since Tulsa. Five on the road. And now home, where the leaves are down on Pearl Road and the first real cold has come off the lake and the whole neighborhood smells like somebody’s fireplace.
And one game left in the regular season. Ohio. Saturday. Two days after Thanksgiving. At our place.
Bridget’s driving up Wednesday. She texted: “Dad, I love you, but I’m going to be in the press box Saturday, and I’m going to be wearing green.” I wrote back, “Our green or your green?” She sent back a single bobcat emoji. My own daughter. With an emoji.
Sal knows it’s coming too. Monday he trimmed my hair in total silence and then, as I was paying, he said, “Saturday, Mick,” and pointed at the pennant, which is facing the room again. It’s been facing the room since September. I didn’t notice it come back around. That’s how they get you.
Four pierogi, and a fifth reserved for Saturday.
Ten and one. Ten. I need to say it twice so the Doom Model hears it.
An eighteen-point win over Oklahoma State, at home, after a five-game road trip, is what a grown-up team does: it comes home tired and takes care of business anyway. Nine wins in a row. I’ve stopped asking whether this team is real. I’ve started asking how real.
Saturday’s the test. Ohio is the only team on this schedule I’d describe as “weather.” Thanksgiving is Thursday at the Bridges’ house, and then I’m going to sit in the press box two days later, ten feet from Mickey’s daughter, trying not to make eye contact while we watch our teams decide the season’s last word.
At trivia, Nadia asked who I had Saturday. I said the Vikings. She said, “No, Ken. Who do you have.” I said, “I don’t know.” She poured me a water and said, “That’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said in here.”
Back and forth
Ten and one, Kenny. Ten and one.
Say it again. I want the spreadsheet to hear it.
Ohio Saturday.
Thursday first. Pass the stuffing. Then we suffer.
Ten wins before Thanksgiving, a pennant that crept back around while nobody was looking, and a doubter who honestly doesn’t know.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.