Arizona Finally Pays for 2025, and the Defense Finds Its Teeth
Cleveland State55
Arizona10
- Game
- 2032 Week 7
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 7-0
Vikings 55, Arizona 10. AT HOME. SEVEN AND OH.
You’ll remember, folks, in 2025, Arizona came to Cleveland and beat us by twenty-one in a game I still can’t watch. Big Stan’s counter went silent that day. Silent! In a deli! Since then we beat them by one in Tucson in 2026, which Big Stan celebrated by lifting me off the ground, and by seventeen out there in 2027.
And this year they came back to our house. Forty-five points of daylight. Ten points allowed. The defense Kenny worried about for a month held a Big 12 team to a single touchdown and a field goal.
At the deli on Monday, Stan didn’t lift me off the ground. He’s sixty-four, same as me, and his back has opinions now. Instead he just handed me a Price Is Right, with the horseradish already on it. I said, “Stan, I thought you had to earn the horseradish.” He said, “Mick, you’ve been earning it since 1994.”
Gerald, the ham man, raised his hand and said, “Have I earned it?” Stan looked at him for a long time. Then he gave Gerald horseradish. Gerald cried a little. The council voted that it was “appropriate.” Chester abstained.
Five pierogi.
A forty-five-point home win over Arizona, with ten points allowed. Seven and oh. And I’ll eat my words from two weeks ago, because the defense I called a “fingerprint” just held a good offense to its lowest total in years against the Vikings.
What changed? I don’t know. Coaching staffs make adjustments, and I’m not in the room. What I know is that the defense that gave up thirty-one three times in four weeks has allowed thirty-eight points in its last two games combined.
Next up, home against USF, then on the road to Ames and Athens. Ohio is still undefeated.
My father, Sunday, sounded tired, my mother said, but clear. I told him about the defense. He said, “The corners are playing better.” I asked, “How do you know?” He said, “Because they won.” It’s the kind of logic I spent twenty years mocking in Mickey. My father has it too. I’ve decided it’s genetic in Cleveland and skipped me.
Back and forth
You ate your words, Kenny!
I did. With horseradish. Stan sent another sandwich. The note said, “Eat both.”
Gerald earned his horseradish.
Seven years in that chair. He’s more patient than any of us.
Arizona finally pays for 2025, the defense finds its teeth, and Gerald the ham man earns his horseradish after seven patient years.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.