55-20: Ohio Comes to Cleveland and Wins Big
Cleveland State20
Ohio55
- Game
- 2033 Week 11
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 10-1
Ohio 55, Vikings 20. At home.
Thirty-five points. Our worst home loss of the Dolan era, folks, and it came against the best Ohio team I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen all of them. They were faster, stronger and better coached on the day. Tim Slocombe has built something remarkable down in Athens. I can say that and still want to throw my radio in the lake.
I sat down in the fourth quarter. For Bridget. For my heart. For Donna, who put her hand on my knee and kept it there. I didn’t yell. I didn’t stand. I just sat there in the cold, and watched, and held my wife’s hand, and it was, I’m surprised to say, not the worst way to lose a football game.
Bridget texted after. Not “sorry, Dad.” She wrote: “did you sit down?” I wrote back: “I sat down.” She wrote: “thank you. i love you. we’ll see you in the bracket maybe.” Then a green heart. Then a second heart, a Vikings-green heart, which isn’t a real emoji, so she must have found the closest one.
Sal will have something to say Monday. Sal can say it. My heart can take it. Small pill. Long walk. Sit down in the fourth quarter.
Zero pierogi. Not even the one in the paper cup.
A thirty-five-point home loss to undefeated Ohio. Ten and one. The worst home loss of the Dolan era, and the second straight regular-season meeting Ohio has won by more than thirty.
Here’s my honest assessment: Ohio is the best team in the country, and the gap between Ohio and the Vikings right now is real. It’s not one bad afternoon. It’s two meetings in a row. I don’t know if the Vikings can close it this year. I know they closed it last year, three weeks after a forty-two-point loss, and I learned not to count this program out.
I didn’t call Sarasota this Sunday. My mother called me. She said my father had had a hard week and was resting, and that he’d asked about me, by name, on Thursday. “He said, ‘Is Kenny coming back?’” she said. “I told him you were just here.” She said he seemed glad. I said I’d come at Christmas. She said, “Good. Come at Christmas.”
Teresa put on a record from the big compartment. She didn’t ask which one. She knows.
Back and forth
I sat down, Kenny. The whole fourth quarter.
I saw. From the press box. Donna’s hand on your knee. Best thing I saw all day.
You’re going at Christmas?
Christmas. Teresa’s coming. My mother said “good” like she meant it.
The worst home loss of the Dolan era to the best Ohio team anyone’s seen, a believer who sat down in the fourth quarter for the people who love him, and a Christmas trip to Sarasota that Ken won’t put off.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.