One morning last week, a plane left Los Angeles at 8:01 a.m. PDT. It was carried across the country by an extraordinary tailwind and made it all the way to Washington, D.C. by 3:02 p.m. ET. Total flight time: 4 hours and 1 minute.

Later that day, a football game between Florida State and Ole Miss kicked off at 8:06 p.m. It smacked into the sport’s ordinary headwinds—short touchdown drives, long television breaks and a longer halftime—and the fourth quarter wasn’t over until 12:10 a.m. Total game time: 4 hours and 4 minutes.

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