The Rice University Neologisms Database

a period of time of indeterminate length, equal to or longer than one minute in real time During the fourth quarter of a football game, the minutes on the timer are not equal to minutes in real time. Sometimes a ‘football minute’ is equal to 15 minutes in real time. My boyfriend has the tendency of telling me that he will call me in one minute and will end up calling me twenty minutes later. After a couple times of getting mad at him for doing that he changed his line. He started saying he would call me in a football minute (meaning an indeterminate length of time)! It could be five minutes or half an hour! Being a student at the University of Texas at Austin, he is a big football fan. Apparently, UT students use the term ‘football minute’ quite often. This term is not limited to a certain community; it is likely that football fans would understand why this term is used in comparison to someone who does not watch or understand football. When my boyfriend first said this word to me, I was not familiar with football. He had to explain why he was using ‘football minute.’ Since then, I have started watching (and understanding) football. I have caught myself using the term a couple times. It is actually a great term because it is very easy to tell someone you will call them back in ‘one minute,’ but it is actually going to be ten or fifteen minutes. I now say, “I’ll call you in a football minute.” This way, I don’t get in trouble for not calling back by a certain time.