The First Playoff Game in Program History, and It Was Ohio State
Cleveland State45
Ohio State38
- Game
- 2028 CFP Quarterfinal
- Site
- Neutral site
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 13-1
Vikings 45, Ohio State 38. A COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF WIN.
Let me say that again for every Cleveland State fan who ever sat in the rain in 1999 watching us lose by thirty to a team from three states over: we just won a playoff quarterfinal. Against Ohio State. The big one. The one from Columbus with the stadium you can see from space.
Seven points. A touchdown. In the biggest game this program has ever played. After a first-round bye that felt like a month and a week of practice I watched through a fence at the facility like a kid outside a bakery. When it ended, I didn’t yell. I couldn’t. I just sat in my seat with my hands on my knees, and the fella next to me, a stranger in a Vikings beanie, put his arm around my shoulders and said, “We did it, Pop.” He was about thirty. I’m not his pop. Didn’t matter. At that moment, every Viking was everybody’s kid.
The semifinal’s next. Against Charlotte, the Cinderella of the bracket. Then, maybe, the game.
Five pierogi. I’ve stopped counting jerseys. Donna’s counting for me.
The Vikings won a College Football Playoff game. Against Ohio State. By a touchdown.
I’ll keep the analysis short because I’m still not sure my hands are steady enough to type: Ohio State is the program everyone in this state measures themselves against. The Vikings beat them in a playoff game. That’s not a win; that’s a re-ranking of the whole state.
Teresa came to this one. Neutral site, big stadium, huge crowd. She’d never been to anything like it. In the fourth quarter, with the game tied, she grabbed my hand. Not my arm, my hand. She didn’t let go until the clock hit zero. Afterward she said, “I’ve worked trauma nights calmer than that.” I said, “Now you know.” She said, “Now I know why you look like that every Saturday.” She gets it now. She doesn’t care about football. She cares about the thing football does to me. That’s better.
My dad, on the phone after: “Ohio State, Kenny?” Yes, Dad. “Our Vikings?” Yes, Dad. “Write it down.”
Back and forth
We beat Ohio State, Kenny!
In a playoff game. I’m going to need a minute. Possibly a decade.
Teresa held your hand!
For the whole fourth quarter. Strictly a clinical decision.
The first playoff win in program history, over Ohio State, a stranger calling Mickey “Pop,” and a nurse holding a doubter’s hand through the longest quarter of his life.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.