Ohio Wins the Third One, and Mickey Un-Retires
Cleveland State23
Ohio38
- Game
- 2030 CFP Semifinal
- Site
- Neutral site
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 14-1
Ohio 38, Vikings 23. In the national semifinal.
Fourteen and oh, and then Ohio. Kenny’s theory was right. I hate it when Kenny’s theory is right. The team that had lost twice came out with nothing to protect and played like it, and Tim Slocombe’s team goes back to the national championship game, and we come home.
I went to find Bridget after, like last year. She came out of the Ohio press room and before I could say anything, she said, “Dad, I need to tell you something, and Eli’s here, and please don’t yell.” I said, “I never yell.” Eli laughed. Then she told me.
I’m going to be a grandfather. This summer.
Folks, I’m not retiring. I can’t. Somebody has to teach that baby the right fight song, and it’s not going to be the baby’s mother. The rocking chair stays on the porch. I’ll need it for the baby, not for me.
Fourteen and one. Big 12 champions, 9-0 in the league. Dave Shelley threw for 4,763 yards and won the Heisman, the Maxwell, the Camp and the O’Brien, and made All-American. Robert Okoronkwo ran for 1,889 as a redshirt freshman. Dakota McNitt caught for 1,557. Nate Cavka won his second Thorpe and picked off six. Coach Dolan is the national Coach of the Year. Coach Draft, our coordinator, was named the best in the country and is leaving to be head coach at West Virginia. We wish him well.
A fifteen-point loss to Ohio in the national semifinal ends a fourteen-and-oh run one game short of the title game.
I’ll be honest: I wanted to be wrong. The Vikings were the better team twice this year. In the third game, Ohio was the better team by two touchdowns. That’s football, and it’s also, apparently, a rule I made up in a bar.
What I’ll remember about 2030 isn’t the semifinal. It’s thirty-eight to thirty-seven in Cleveland. It’s a perfect regular season. It’s Coach Dolan, Coach of the Year, building a team that beat the national champions twice in a month.
And it’s Mickey on the phone at midnight, crying, saying, “Kenny, I’m going to be a grandpa,” and then, “and I’m not retiring,” and then, “and I want you there when the baby comes, and bring Teresa, and bring whatever you bought in Tremont.”
I didn’t buy anything in Tremont. Yet.
My father, Sunday: “Ohio’s always tough, Kenny.” Then: “Mickey’s going to be a grandpa?” My mother had told him. “Good. Tell him I said it’s the best job there is.”
Back and forth
I’m going to be a grandpa, Kenny!
I know. You told me at midnight. And at 6 a.m. And just now.
I’m not retiring.
I never believed you. Neither did Sam. That’s why he built a chair big enough for two.
Ohio wins the rubber match and a fourteen-and-oh run ends one game short, a believer un-retires for a grandchild, and a walnut rocking chair finds its real purpose.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.