I have retired from IE but I'll peek back in this once to support BGIF's terrific historical re-cap of the gradual curbing of unlimited scholarship abuses and the concomitant evening out [somewhat] of competition. BGIF as usual deserves massive reps, and publicly saying so is best. IE is lucky to have him.
During my years at ND we were in the opposite situation "on the field" due to the two-way play rule. Only two substitutions were allowed when offense changed to defense. Just previously, however, one of our Johnny's favorite guys, Johnny Lattner, proved that you could be better than anyone in the country on both sides of the ball as both AA RB and DB. I just missed Hornung, but he was VERY good on defense, too. Gripes about him winning the Heisman on that losing team are crap. Watch his films --- hero against all odds.
This rule really hamstrung coaching staffs as BGIF has said, and particularly at positions like receiver. Can the guy you want in there play defensive end?? Your halfbacks were your corners, and your safety was often your ace DB who covered their mistakes, and substituted for your usually incompetent quarterback.
When two-way football came back and essentially free substitution arose, Bear Bryant instituted the Alabama method of winning by recruiting everybody who could walk and chew gum simultaneously. He held football camp with several hundred players blundering around the fields. This was like an elaborate try-out scheme, and he could choose the hundred or so that he actually wanted to concentrate on. BGIF is, as usual, right in that he "drafted" some players just to keep them away from Georgia or Tennessee.
Since he had early success, and was already semi-legendary, he talked the administration [read: rich alumni] into building the "Bryant Hilton", a pseudo-dorm just for athletes, and of luxury accommodations. [relative to student dorms anyway]. This made recruiting 80 guys per year much easier, and depleted the athlete pool by 50+ good players for other schools --- plus remember that the total number of really good high school players was far less back then in pre-NFL ambition days.
Bear Bryant is responsible for many rules changes due to his "creative abuse" of legality. It is warming to see that Nick Saban is energetically carrying on his tradition today.
p.s. on the topic of enrollment: my memory of 1958-1962 is that we had about 8000 students on campus, which included the graduate school students. There was a fairly high attrition rate back then between freshman and sophomore years, which probably isn't so fierce today. My incoming chemistry class was around 70. We graduated 19. Many of those others continued by transferring to other curricula, but a bunch just left school for easier pastures.
