One Point Short, and Ken Plays the Record Anyway
Cleveland State34
Ohio35
- Game
- 2031 National Championship
- Site
- Neutral site
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 15-1
Ohio 35, Vikings 34. Ohio are national champions again.
One point. ONE POINT. Last year we beat them by one in Cleveland, thirty-eight to thirty-seven, and I cried on a bleacher. This time they beat us by one for everything, and I cried in my car. That’s a rivalry, folks. It gives with one hand and takes back with the other, and it never, ever forgets the score.
Rose slept through the fourth quarter in Donna’s arms, in her neutral gray. When it was over, Donna handed her to me. I held her and didn’t say anything for a long time. Then Bridget came down from the press box and hugged me with Rose between us, and said, “Dad, I’m so sorry.” I said, “Kiddo, you’re a three-time champion. Go celebrate.” She said, “Not yet. I’m hugging my dad.”
Fifteen and one. Big 12 champions, 8-0 in the league. The nation’s top-scoring offense. Robert Okoronkwo ran for 2,405 yards and 41 touchdowns and won the Heisman, the Camp and the Walker. Greg Price, the kid who waited, threw for 5,979 yards and won the O’Brien. Price, Okoronkwo, Dakota McNitt (2,252 receiving yards) and Titus Peart made All-American. Coach Dolan is Coach of the Year again.
Zero pierogi.
A one-point loss in the national championship game ends a fifteen-and-oh season one point short of perfect.
I’ll write the analysis once: two excellent teams played a game that came down to the last possession, and Ohio had the last possession. That’s all. It’s also everything.
Afterward, at about one in the morning, I went home. Teresa was waiting up. I took “Undefeated” off the shelf. I put it on the turntable. I said, “The note said not to play it yet. I’m playing it anyway.” She said, “Why?” I said, “Because a record can be undefeated. People can’t. I’ve lost a lot. I want to spend the rest of the losing with you.”
Then I took the small thing out of my coat pocket, where it’s lived since August, and I got down on one knee, in the living room, between the jazz and the reading nook, and asked.
She said yes before I finished. She said, “Kenny, I’ve known since August. You walk funny.”
Then I called my father, at two in the morning, and he answered, and he knew me, and he said, “Did she say yes?” and I said, “She said yes, Dad.” And he said, “Good. Somebody in this family should be normal.” He said that in 2024. He doesn’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He meant it twice.
Back and forth
SHE SAID YES?
Before I finished. My mother had “Christmas” in the pool and says it’s close enough. Nadia is reviewing the claim. The game didn’t go our way. The night did.
Ohio by one point for a third straight national title, a fifteen-and-oh season one point short, and a jazz record finally played for the right reason.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.