Unfortunately no, they can't be combined. The document.title has to be called as close to the top of the htm for refresh performance when the page reloads. As expected there is a flash when the page loads the original title and the title string gets manipulated. Placing as close to the top as possible minimizes that flash, and perceptibly reduces that interval. As for the jQuery title manipulation, it can only be called after the jQuery lib has been loaded and only after $(document).ready. Essentially they were split for performance reasons.

I will enhance the comments though for both, to clarify what each is doing.