Today's Tidbit... The House Of The Setting Sun

An avid reader of Football Archaeology who is researching early pro football sent the following question this morning:

I have been running into almost every [team name] game in 1903 having the first half being longer than the second half. For example, the 1st half will be 25 minutes long and the second half is 20 minutes.

Since they were playing by college rules in 1903, do you have a good explanation as to why?

I've previously covered this topic in bits and pieces, so I'll use this Tidbit to provide a consolidated answer. In addition, answering the question allows me to retell one of my favorite stories of how outside events led to changes in football's rules.

At some point in my many years of schooling (I was not held back, thank you), I learned the difference between de jure and de facto. De jure describes how things should be according to the law, while de facto concerns how things occur in practice. Applying those concepts to football, the rulebook prescribes how teams should play football, but teams do not always follow the rules in practice or games.

The de jure and de facto distinction was critical when the game began because football had only 61 rules. The rules did not prescribe many game elements, yet teams could play football based on tradition, and players gained an understanding of informal "rules" along the way. In effect, they understood the game's culture.

Notably, the IFA rules of 1876 did not specify the length of games, though teams played two forty-five-minute innings or halves by tradition. The halves were reduced to thirty-five minutes in 1894 and thirty minutes in 1906 before shifting to four fifteen-minute quarters in 1910. Other than the NCAA's addition of overtime in the 1970s, the game's length has held steady for 117 or 113 years, depending on how you define it.

That covers the de jure side of things. How about the de facto?