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Originally Posted by JugglingReferee
I once heard that the US uses a 100 yard field because at a game once at Harvard there was not enough real estate for the larger field, and this new format stuck.
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No, but you're close. Among the alternatives considered to legalizing the forward pass was
widening the field, but the cement had been poured for Soldiers Field (The one at Harvard, not Soldier Field in Chicago -- or do I have it reversed?), and it couldn't accommodate significantly greater width.
The length was shortened to 100 yards later, when end zones were provided. Until that time, the amount of space allowed for the ball to be in play behind the goal line was just local ground rule -- theoretically until you hit a fence or whatever. Then it was decided to allow just 10 yards depth to complete a TD pass, although the ball could still be in play for other purposes behind the end line. Some fields, however, didn't have space to accommodate even 10 yards depth unless a little of the field of play was sacrificed, so that's what was done. (I don't think Soldiers was the problem at that time.) In old photos (or the rule book diagram), you can see they extended the chalk of the sidelines a little past the end lines, until the end lines were made field boundaries for all purposes rather than just pass completions.
Robert