Life After Hocker Begins With Seventy-One Points
Cleveland State71
Kent State7
- Game
- 2029 Week 1
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 1-0
Friends, for the first time in four years, somebody other than Amar’e Hocker took the first snap of a Vikings season.
His name is Greg Price, a redshirt freshman, rated 77, and here’s what he did in his first start, on the road, in Kent: Vikings 71, Kent State 7. Sixty-four points of daylight. I don’t know what the sound is that a city makes when it lets out a breath it’s been holding since January, but I heard it from my porch in Old Brooklyn.
The Hocker stays on the board at Big Stan’s. Stan announced at the counter that the sandwich has been “retired, like a jersey.” You can still order it. It just costs a dollar more now, “for legacy.” Nobody complained. Chester ordered two.
And jersey thirty-six goes in the closet next to the national champions’ jersey, which Donna has hung in a garment bag with a little lavender sachet “so the championship doesn’t smell like the rest of the closet.” I’ve never been so moved by a sachet.
Four pierogi. A new quarterback. A new year. Put it in the time capsule.
The Vikings beat my alma mater by sixty-four points, which I’d like to formally note is twenty-seven points worse than what happened to Kent last year. Phil, the Kent State sports information director, sent me a single text: “Again?” I wrote back, “I’m sorry, Phil.” He wrote, “You keep saying that.”
The new quarterback is a redshirt freshman. The last time the Vikings started a young quarterback, in 2025, I was suspicious, and he won the Heisman three years later. So I’m going to be suspicious again, purely for consistency.
What’s different this year: the national championship hangover. The Vikings lost a big senior class: Hocker, most of the defensive front, most of the secondary. History says title teams come back hungry or come back soft. I’ll know which in about a month.
Personal note, since Mickey will mention it anyway: Teresa and I are moving in together. Next week. I’m bringing eleven hundred records. She’s bringing one plant, which is real. I’ve been told to “make peace with it.”
“Lil”: a nickname from a summer camp in 1997. I was in the cabin with the smallest bunks.
Back and forth
You’re moving in with Teresa!
I mentioned it so you wouldn’t have to. You’re going to anyway.
Eleven hundred records, Kenny?
She’s measured the walls. We’re negotiating.
Seventy-one points to start life after Hocker, a retired sandwich for a dollar more, and one doubter moving eleven hundred records into a home with a real plant.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.