Daily Dirt: It’s time for those cozy recliners, favorite snacks, tasty beverages and college football

Daily Dirt for Saturday, Sept. 2, 2023

I know who I’ll be watching this afternoon. How about you? .Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 714 of The Daily Dirt.

1. Today is the first big day of the college football season. That means millions and millions of Americans will be joining me in their favorite recliners, their eyes glued to the television for hours on end while munching on their favorite snacks and sipping on a soda with plenty of ice.

Which colleges will command the biggest viewerships? I’m glad you asked, because I have the answer, or at least I can provide the answer for last season.

Zach Miller, a writer for medium.com, reports the following 10 schools commanded the largest average TV audiences during the 2022 season:

• 1. Ohio State, an average of 5.80 million each week. (Ohio State has been No. 1 for at least six straight years, according to information I could find.)
• 2. Alabama, 5.11 million.
• 3. Michigan, 4.37 million.
• 4. Tennessee, 4.13 million.
• 5. Georgia, 3.50 million.
• 6. Notre Dame, 3.30 million.
• 7. LSU, 3.22 million.
• 8. Texas, 3.06 million.
• 9. Penn State, 3.05 million.
• 10. Clemson, 2.59 million.
• 27. Iowa, 1.50 million.
• 32. Illinois, 1.17 million.
• 50. Missouri, 793,000.

Top single-game viewings in 2022

• 1. Michigan at Ohio State, 17.14 million.
• 2. Tennessee at Georgia, 13.06 million.
• 3. Alabama at Tennessee, 11.56 million.
• 4. Alabama at Texas, 10.60 million.
• 5. Notre Dame at Ohio State, 10.53 million.

2. You can file this under strange-but-oh-so-true.

The inventor of the stop sign never learned how to drive. Few, if any, people have had a more positive effect on the way we drive and traffic safety than a gentleman named William Phelps Eno, sometimes called the “father of traffic safety.”

The New York City-born Eno invented the stop sign around the dawn of the 20th century. After his father’s death in 1898 left him with a multimillion-dollar inheritance, Eno devoted himself to creating a field that didn’t otherwise exist: traffic management. 

Eno developed the first traffic plans for New York, Paris and London. In 1921, he founded the Washington, D.C.-based Eno Center for Transportation, a research foundation on multimodal transportation issues that still exists. 

One thing Eno did not do, however, is learn how to drive. Perhaps because he had such extensive knowledge of them, Eno distrusted automobiles and preferred riding horses. He died in Connecticut at the age of 86 in 1945 — having never driven a car.

3. Here are some more of the top comic signs found along U.S. highways

• “Be the person your dog thinks you are.”
• “Monsters don’t like to eat ghosts because they taste like sheet.”
• “Some people are such treasures you just want to bury them.”
• “In search of fresh vegetable puns. Lettuce know.”
• “Keep your eyes on the road and your head out of your apps.”

Steve Thought O’ The Day
I’d like to give a big shout-out to my fingers. I can always count on them.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. He roots daily for his beloved Buckeyes.