Early in the 1970's, teams could recruit 45 players until Title IX was put in effect and I believe limits went from 45 to 35 to the 25 limit we now have.
Switzer's teams had lots of depth and OU could recruit a player just to keep him from going elsewhere, or so the story goes. It's been written that OU, like many other teams, could "hide" a player while in high school so other teams wouldn't recruit them. Rod Shoate, it has been said, was such a player.
Switzer never had to deal with the degree of difficulty to win games in the days when there wasn't the parity we see today.
I don't think OU hid Rod Shoate. I don't think we found him until pretty late in the process, watching film on somebody else. Title IX wasn't really part of the decision to lower scholarship numbers. Football wasn't the cash cow then that it is now. In 1971, OU had it's first year of more than two sellouts in one season.
The 1956 team, some considered OU's best ever, had only four home games. Two of them had attendance under 40,000 and with a stadium capacity of 62K and change, OUr largest home crowd was under 58,000. The best year of the 60s was probably 1967. Home attendance for the whole year averaged under 55,000 and the tv money was miniscule. You could only be on national tv twice a year at the most, and seldom had that.
It wasn't until after the OU-Georgia lawsuit against the NCAA, allowing teams to control their own tv contracts, that the money started growing. In the early 70's, two things happened to change the national perspective on recruiting numbers in football. Before the change, i think in 1973, there were no national rules. The number of 45 ships a year, was a Big 8 limitation. Every conference had different rules.
Independent schools had no limits. They could recruit as many as they could afford. I remember Houston bringing in 70 guys one year. In 73 national limits came in for the first time. That's when the numbers started going down. Before then, you could sign with more than one school. Joe Washington signed with two or three.
The national rules changed that with a national signing day. And total ships per year. The limitations related to Title IX came later, when an overall number was implemented. And that got lowered in the 20th century eventually down to 85. That 1972 season was a big deal for several reasons. It was the year that freshman could play on the varsity. That hadn't been the case since a little after WWII.We had the Boomers freshman team before then.
All of that was designed not to accommodate Title IX, but to lower costs, giving have nots, with even less money available, a chance to compete with the haves.
