Whipped Cream Difficulties

This week’s TMQ, after the jump…

The Seattle Seahawks have football’s best defense, while the University of Oregon Ducks have football’s best offense.

473 words down.

(“Dip a crumpet in your espresso…” Uh, are crumpets really a Pacific Northwest thing? But thanks, TMQ, for not using the hideous neologism “cronut” instead.)

Impossible numbers are becoming the norm in NCAA football.

But if they’re happening, aren’t they, by definition, not impossible?

NFL average scoring per team per game has risen from 18.7 points two decades ago to 22.8 points in 2012. Football Bowl Subdivision scoring has risen from 20.6 points per game per team in 1972 to 28.3 points in 2012. Last season ended with 57 FBS schools — nearly half the total — averaging at least 30 points per game. The uptick continues; last weekend, all of FBS averaged 30.7 points per school per game, and 427 yards of offense per team per game. The average big-college football team exceeded 400 yards.

ESPN College Game Day: next week, from Fargo, North Dakota. We hope they have laid in supplies of unguent and pancakes. (“And I guess that was your co-host in the wood chipper.”)

Sweet: Kansas City. Sour: Detroit, Tampa. Mixed: Carolina – Buffalo, Minnesota – Chicago.

Late last week, 50-yard-line seats along the Texas A&M sideline were selling for $2,800 apiece. End zone seats for Wagner at Syracuse, kicking off about the same time, were offered for $12 apiece — less than the shipping cost.

Is this a new recurring item? Pulling ticket prices off of StubHub? Because we weren’t aware it was that easy to generate content for ESPN. (Also, Gregg? People wanted to see A&M/Alabama. Wagner at Syracuse? Who? What?)

TMQ spends a lot of time and space this week talking about fuel politics.

One factor is that the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy rating does not reflect actual fuel consumption, rather an elaborate mathematical formula involving sales figures, vehicle weights, manufacturing country of origin and such gimmicks as bonus points for vehicles that can run on ethanol, regardless of whether they really do. Protested both by environmentalists and market economists, the federal CAFE standard both imposes complex regulations on carmakers and misleads the public, by making the mileage performance of new cars sound better than it really is. The result is classic Washington unrealism. Politicians boast about American cars getting “30.2 miles per gallon” when the actual number is much lower; consumers pay less attention to fuel consumption than they should.

Yet Easterbrook never questions whether the Federal government should even be imposing these standards, as opposed to letting the market solve this problem.

Even assuming future growth in the car population and the people population, getting the new-car mpg average into the 40s, combined with increased domestic petroleum production, would enable the United States to kiss the Persian Gulf oil dictatorships goodbye, while restraining greenhouse gas emissions.

(Citation needed.)

So do we understand this correctly: the home crowd in Chicago booed when an opposing player ran a kickoff back for a score, but cheered when one of their players ran a kickoff back for a score? Wow. Stop. The. Presses.

In Philadelphia, the home crowd booed loudly as no one covered Eddie Royal of San Diego on his third-quarter touchdown reception — made worse because the Nesharim rushed only three. Sure you just opened the season with a monster “Monday Night Football” victory, but what have you done for us lately?

Let the other team score? (Also, Gregg, this is Philadelphia, the people who throw batteries at Santa Claus.)

In Baltimore, the home crowd booed the defending champions as they jogged off the field for intermission trailing Cleveland 6-0. Sure you just won the Super Bowl. But what have you done for us lately?

Trailed by six points to the hapless Cleveland Browns?

TMQ actually has some nice things to say about a television show. In this case, “Longmire”. We admit, we’re kind of interested in this show, too. (But we can’t watch it, since we refuse cable.)

(And of course, TMQ’s positive comments are tempered a bit by his usual complaints about geography, crime rates, and police procedure. We’re about to give up on suggesting TMQ read William Goldman, and instead suggest that he write a screenplay that avoids his complaints. Of course, if he does, nothing will happen, and the main characters will spend four hours of the movie driving from Point A to Point B. But it will be realistic!)

The Washington Redskins Generals First Peoples? And boy, do they look awful, two games into the season.

How do you know when Gregg Easterbrook has a new book out? Don’t worry, he’ll tell you. TMQ also likes The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election, which proposes “a moneyball approach to understanding a presidential election — how stats, demographics and polls predict voting”.

The short version of the success of the Seahawks’ defense is good players who hustle, communicate with each other and wrap-up tackle.

The long version is 356 words. And of course, “The Seattle defenders are remarkable in being a collection of late draft picks and castoffs.”

Creep. (It seems to us that the run-up to the United States Bicentennial lasted at least two years, if not more. So why should Indiana be any different?)

Maybe in retrospect, Philadelphia jumped ahead of Washington 33-7 in Week 1 for same reason Green Bay jumped ahead of Washington 31-0 in Week 2 — the cover-your-eyes awful R*dsk*ns defense.

More “fuel politics”: “Ethanol subsidies benefit the corn lobby and Wall Street, but not average voters.” Plus, gas mileage is measured with pure gas, even though the vast majority of gas sold today is a 90/10 gasoline-ethanol blend, which yields about 3% less energy, or “a roughly $75 per driver per year hidden tax to appease the ethanol lobby”. Plus, “Re-engineering cars for high compression and premium fuel makes auto companies and federal regulations happy, but backfires on consumers. Who cares about them anyway?”

Franklin Pierce had no Middle Name, Luckily for Him

Franklin Pierce had three children. Two of them died early deaths. The third was eleven years old when he was crushed to death in a train accident, in front of Pierce and his wife. His vice president died shortly after the inauguration, and Pierce didn’t have a vice president for the rest of his term. He was repudiated by his own party, and is sometimes called one of the worst presidents in history. God forbid that Franklin Pierce had had a middle name; who knows what misfortune would have come his way if he had?

Can we stop the Manning Bowl hype now? Better yet, can we stop the Manning Bowl?

Is it just us, or do the Fashion Week photos look a lot like Devo circa 1977?

Yes, the 500 Club is a thing. Also the 600 Club. And the 700 Club (without Pat Robertson).

A chocolate ice cream, bacon, and chili milkshake? We haven’t tried a horchata shake, but given what goes into horchata, it doesn’t seem super wacky to us.

Trendy chef Mario Batali suggests this high-tech shake: blend vanilla ice cream and skim milk with black pepper and a shot of amaro. Pour into glass and float a second shot of amaro on top, plus half a teaspoon of sea salt. Sip without a straw.

A blender is “high-tech”?

Why won’t Atlanta rush? “The Colts gained 448 yards at home, and lost.”

Adventures in officiating: “injured” players should sit out the whole quarter, “defensive holding should be five yards and offense replays the down”, the hit on Drew Brees shouldn’t have drawn a penalty, and some SF-Seattle stuff.

Aaron Dobson. More “fuel politics”: clean diesels. Stupid blitzing: San Francisco.

University at Buffalo 26, Stony Brook 23. (FIVE overtimes?) And congrats to Frank Cignetti. (Really. We have family ties to IUP.)

That’s a wrap, folks. Tune in next week, when Gregg Easterbrook might – just might – mention his new book again.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 17th, 2013 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Food, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.