A New Opponent, Eight and Oh, and Teddy Goes Quiet
Cleveland State56
South Florida30
- Game
- 2032 Week 8
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 8-0
Vikings 56, South Florida 30, at home. Eight and oh.
A first-time opponent, the Bulls, all the way up from Tampa, and twenty-six points of daylight. Our seniors, Greg Price and Dakota McNitt, keep doing what they’ve done for four years, which is make my wife grab my arm. Donna has bruises. She calls them “McNitt marks.”
Saturday morning I went to the West Side Market to see Teddy. Teddy called the exact score three times in two years, folks, including the semifinal last January. I asked him for the number. He wrapped my kielbasa and didn’t say anything. I asked again. He said, “Not this week, Mick.” I said, “Why not?” He said, “I’m saving it.” I said, “For what?” He looked past me, out the big window toward the south, and said, “For Athens.”
I didn’t like that. I don’t like it when the people who know things start saving them.
The pierogi lady, by the way, sold out by eight. Teddy noticed. I watched him notice. He didn’t say what it meant. He just wrote something on a piece of butcher paper and put it in his apron pocket.
Four pierogi. Eight and oh. Two weeks from Athens.
A twenty-six-point home win over South Florida. Eight and oh. Iowa State in Ames next week, then Ohio in Athens, where the Vikings have won four straight, every other year since 2025.
The pattern I keep citing: the Vikings win in Athens; Ohio finds them later. I’ve written that for three years. This year Ohio is undefeated and the three-time defending national champion, and the game is in Athens, where the pattern says the Vikings should win. Here’s what bothers me: patterns end. Every one of them. The Boulder curse ended. The home losses to Ohio ended. Nothing in this rivalry stays where you put it.
Teddy is “saving” his number. Mickey reported this to me in a voice I haven’t heard since 2026. The Doom Model, which now has a “Teddy” tab, has left the cell for the Ohio game blank. Waiting. Even my spreadsheet is deferring to a sausage vendor.
At ballroom, Teresa and I started the tango. The instructor says the tango is “a conversation where both people are right.” Teresa said, “So, never, for Kenny.” The instructor laughed. I did not. But I did the tango, and I did it well, and I’d like the record to show it.
Back and forth
Teddy’s saving the number for Athens.
I heard. The Doom Model left the cell blank out of respect.
You can tango?
I can tango. Badly, but with conviction. Like most things I do.
Eight and oh against a first-time opponent, a sausage oracle saving his number for Athens, and a doubter tangoing with conviction.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.