The RedHawks Three-Peat, and Next One
Cleveland State35
Miami (OH)56
- Game
- 2036 National Championship
- Site
- Neutral site
- Result
- Loss
- Record
- 14-2
Miami (OH) 56, Vikings 35. The RedHawks are national champions for the third straight year.
Twenty-one points. Joe Snyderwine’s RedHawks were better. They’ve been better for three straight years, and they’ve earned every title. Congratulations to Oxford. Congratulations to Nadia. I mean it.
Donna sat with Nadia. When it ended, Nadia hugged her and cried, and then, Donna says, Nadia took the green ribbon out of her pocket and tried to give it to Donna. And Donna said, “No. Ken has to win it back himself.” Then Donna came home and told me, and I said, “Donna, that’s very hard-hearted.” She said, “Michael, it’s fair. Fair is a kind of love.”
Fourteen and two. Third in the Big 12, 8-1. Elijah Pashos threw for 6,228 yards and 86 touchdowns, both school records. Lyle Sawyer caught for 1,892. Rodney Duggan ran for 1,472. And Vonn Ladd, the man with the sandwich, had 21.5 sacks and won the Nagurski and the Butkus and made All-American. Josh Andries, Pat Rodenhauser and Spencer James made All-American. Our coordinator, Coach Anger, is leaving to be head coach at Miami of Florida. We wish him well, unless he plays us.
Teddy’s note is still in my wallet. Not this season, either.
Next one.
Zero pierogi.
A twenty-one-point loss to Miami (OH) in the national championship game. Fourteen and two. The RedHawks have won three straight titles, and six straight games against the Vikings.
I’m going to write the honest thing. The Vikings have now played in three straight national championship games and lost all three, to the same team. They have been, for three years, the second-best program in the country. That’s a sentence I would have mocked in 2024. In 2024 the Vikings were a nine-and-four team, and I treated Mickey’s optimism like a weather pattern, something that would pass. I was wrong. It was a climate.
I called my father after the game. It was late. My mother answered and said he was asleep, but that he’d watched the first half and asked, when he went to bed, “Did Kenny take a vacation this year?” She told him yes. She said he smiled and said, “Good. Best week.” That’s the notebook entry for the season. “Best week.”
Nadia texted me at 2 a.m.: “Win it back next year.” I wrote: “Next one.” She wrote: “That’s Mickey’s line.” I wrote: “It’s everybody’s now.”
Back and forth
Fair is a kind of love, Donna says.
She’s right. I’ll win the ribbon back myself. Next year.
Next one?
Next one.
The RedHawks three-peat, Donna refuses to take the ribbon on Ken’s behalf because fair is a kind of love, Teddy’s note waits one more season, and the whole city learns to say “next one.”
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.