Judging from a quick scan of the morning headlines and my Facebook, Twitter and Google+ news feeds, it’s a pretty universal fact that last night’s Super Bowl was a wee bit disappointing. While it’s true the Denver Broncos’ high-octane, option-loaded offense didn’t quite measure up to Seattle’s stifling Legion of Boom nor the pregame billing of an epic battle between league-leading No. 1s on opposite sides of the ball, I was confident from the kickoff, given that we had Aggies on both squads and therefore would emerge victorious. (Yay, 12th Man — the real one!)

But leave it to self-described math geeks to liven up an otherwise lame game with a little game within the game, described here in excerpts from Texas A&M Mathematics’ Amy Austin’s related post last night on Facebook:

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

AUSTIN: So me and my geeky friend just calculated how fast that Seahawk player was running when he just scored that most recent touchdown.

14.3 mph.

AUSTIN (admitting a little further into the comments that she was the instigator, if not the geek🙂 Well, it was me that wondered aloud how fast he was running. So the friend I was talking on the phone with is the one that took out her calculator. She’s the geek. Not me. 😉

ANOTHER FRIEND (drawn in:) What was your formula…..no, forget I asked!

AUSTIN: Good old distance equals rate times time. And of course we had to convert from yards to miles and seconds to hours.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Just goes to show that math and science not only are fun but also all around us, if we so choose to recognize and embrace what clearly can be a challenge just as exciting as sports. Possibly even more so on otherwise disappointing nights such as these.

#winning

Yep, now that I actually look, there are the obvious plus, minus and equals signs right there in the laces. What else do you see? (Credit: Torsten Bolten, Wikimedia Commons)

P.S. For those interested in a little 12th Man history, check out this extensive treatise on the subject by the outstandingly enterprising and clever folks at Good Bull Hunting.