Today's Tidbit... Eliminating The Second Half Kickoff

Among the rules gridiron football borrowed from rugby was to flip a coin to determine which team could kick off or select a goal to defend. In the early days, teams switched goals after every score and following halftime. Changing goals after every score went away, but goal switching continued after halftime until fifteen-minute quarters replaced thirty-minute halves in 1910.

(1903 Michigan yearbook)

Although the details around these choices have changed, the second half has always started with a kickoff by one team or the other. Like many tried-and-true aspects of football, however, there have been a few suggestions to start the second half differently. In this case, the primary suggestion has been to start the second half in possession of the team and at the spot where the first half ended.

This suggestion came in the years when evenly-matched teams struggled to move the ball. For example, in 1898, an unnamed football aficionado argued: