The New Coordinator Beats His Old Team, and Leo Reyes Is Eleven
Cleveland State56
Army24
- Game
- 2029 Week 3
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 3-0
Vikings 56, Army 24, at home. Three and oh!
And here’s a little story inside the story, folks: our new offensive coordinator, Brian Draft, came to us this year from Army. His old team. So on Saturday he stood on our sideline and called plays against the defense he used to practice against every day. Thirty-two points of daylight. I’d love to know what that postgame handshake felt like. Probably like running into your ex at the West Side Market while you’re holding a really nice kielbasa.
Coach Morales, who built this offense, is out in Tempe now as Arizona State’s coordinator. I miss him. I wish him well. I wish him well every week except the one where we play Arizona State.
And Leo Reyes is eleven. He’s in his last year with my Lakers before he ages out, and he’s our starting cornerback and a team captain. Before the first game of the season, he gathered the team and said, “Coach Mickey says we keep showing up.” He was quoting Danny from 2024, who was quoting me. That’s how it works, my people. It passes down like a recipe.
Four pierogi. Leo’s mother says he’s not allowed to have one before bed.
A thirty-two-point win over Army with a first-year coordinator who used to coach there. I’d like to read the scouting report that man prepared. I imagine it was very personal.
Three and oh, with a redshirt freshman quarterback who’s now won his first three starts by sixty-four, fourteen and thirty-two. The program didn’t miss a beat losing its Heisman winner. That shouldn’t be possible. It’s becoming a habit, this program doing things that shouldn’t be possible. I’ve had to update my priors so often the spreadsheet has a changelog.
At the Lantern Room, Nadia was in an unusual mood. She set down my beer and said, “This is the year, Ken.” I asked, “The year for what?” She said, “The year the bet flips.” Then she turned the RedHawks bobblehead to face me and left it there. Miami (OH) is undefeated too. The Doom Model has started flagging the Miami (OH) game in red. Not orange. Red.
“Lil,” for the reader who caught me at the move: a moving company estimate in 2015 that listed my apartment as “lil.” The estimator was being accurate.
Back and forth
The new OC beat his old team!
That’s not football. That’s a custody hearing.
Nadia says it’s the year the bet flips.
She’s said that for five years. This time she said it calmly. Calm is worse.
A coordinator’s homecoming in reverse, an eleven-year-old captain passing down the recipe, and a bobblehead staring at Ken with a calm that should worry everyone.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.