End of an Era

When the N.C.A.A. introduced the free substitution rule for football back in 1941, the theory was that more boys would be able to play, injuries would be reduced and smaller colleges would get a chance to make the best use of their football talent. In practice, things worked out just the opposite. More boys played, but they became the robot-like specialists of the two-platoon system; injuries increased because the players never got a chance to warm up again after riding the bench; and more than 50 colleges quit football because they had neither the money nor the manpower to support the huge two-platoon squads. Last week, abruptly ending an unhappy era, the N.C.A.A.'s football rules committee abolished the two-platoon system, gave the game back to the all-round man--and the spectators.

Reaction to the new substitution rule* was immediate, often indignant, but generally downright delighted. Surprisingly, some of football's big-time coaches, who have the money and manpower to benefit from the two-platoon game, were in favor of the change. Said Oklahoma's Bud Wilkinson: "It's in the best interests of the game. The two-platoon system has a tendency to make big teams bigger and little teams weaker." Colorado Mines' Coach Fritz Brennecke saw other benefits: "It will reduce the pressure on recruiting and finances . . . Everyone will have to know how to block and tackle."

Coaches opposed to going back to football fundamentals had a harder time explaining their position. Southern Methodist's Rusty Russell, who bosses a 150-man squad, sputtered: "I don't like it . . . Who's going to keep books on the players?" Wisconsin's Ivy Williamson, whose team lost in the Rose Bowl, could only mutter that "football won't be the same without the two-platoon system. It made for a better game." Said Ohio State's Woody Hayes, whose goman squad gets its practice for only an hour and 20 minutes daily: "We simply cannot train a boy to play offense and defense in that time."

But even today's players, nursed along as specialists and weaned on two-platoon play, have turned against the system. Speaking for the majority, Columbia's record-breaking Passer Mitch Price explained: "You get a psychological lift from playing both ways. You're in the game more, and if you're pushed around on offense, you get a chance to even up on defense." Added Dartmouth Coach Tuss McLaughry, who coached Brown's famed "Iron Man" eleven of 1926: "The basic philosophy of the two-platoon system has been all wrong. Now we can go back and play the game like it was for 75 years . . . the way it ought to be played."

* Gist of the new rule: a player, once taken out of the game, may not return until the next period, except in the second and fourth quarters, when he may return for the final four minutes of play.

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