The National Football League would wretch in agony. Some support people  like assistant coaches in specialty categories  might be out of jobs. But college football wouldn’t collapse if the scholarship limit was set at 50 instead of 85 and the platoon system was minimized.

More players would be recruited for all-around, two- and even three-way potential rather than as 400-pound, third-down tubs of goo inserted to fill space and hinder a run.

Lop 35 scholarship guys off every roster and there would be more good people available to all the schools. Oh, how the professionals would hate not getting tailor-made specialists from their collegiate no-cost farm system! A lot more NFL guys would actually have to do some coaching instead of baby-sitting miscreants.

I happen to think college football would be a lot more interesting, entertaining and exciting if more players were tutored to play offense and defense and help on special teams. Guys like John Hadl, Doyle Schick, George Mrkonic, Don Fambrough, Ray Evans, Gil Reich, Homer Floyd, Galen Fiss, Nolan Cromwell and such saw multiple duty and people could get fired up tracking their antics.

Nowadays they run people in and out so often and in such specialized circumstances that the average fan goes nuts. How can the spectator keep track and get interested in somebody who appears and disappears like Siegfried and Roy?

Then what about the money?

Say a football scholarship with all the allowable trimmings is worth $20,000 a year, averaged out for in-state, out-state differences. That figure times 35 amounts to $700,000. If it’s $15,000, it would be $525,000 off the old budget.

Bottom line, though, the final figure likely would be $1 million or more.

There wouldn’t have to be as many uniforms and travel costs, the health and medical lug wouldn’t be as big, the coaching payroll and office expenses would be lessened. If the team was playing well, there would be more money from the gate to go further than what trickles in today.

But it’s not about the money  to a point, anyway. (As one pro agent said so well, “When you say it’s not about the money, it’s about the money.”)

Then there is the injury factor. Lots of capable people think that if guys were playing 40 or so minutes they wouldn’t be fresh enough to pulverize each other as they do now. If they were a little more tired, a little better conditioned and a bit more cognizant of having to pace themselves, the blood-letting and sinew-ripping might not be so intense.

For example, a coach sends in a hefty, fresh specialist on defense to punish somebody in a given situation. The target, a back or end, heads for the sideline and is cruising along. Down from the high crown of a field like mount wildcat in Manhattan rumbles a momentum-gathering terminator. Whammo, somebody often gets hurt.

If that defender had been playing steadily and the back or end was better acclimated, maybe no debilitating collision. You send in fresh vaccinators who are tutored for specialty downs and the hospital list can climb.

OK, I don’t have any special study to support any of this. It’s governmental folks who hire consultants and surveyors at enormous prices to find out that when kids get careless, bicycles fall over; if you ignite gasoline, it might explode; when cars aren’t braked, they can coast to disaster; when some imbecilic mother leaves kids in a car on a hot day to get her hair fixed, they might die. I’m just operating on the basis of what I’ve heard a lot of able people express.

Another factor in cutting grid scholarships from 85 to 50 is the obfuscated Title IX thing. There’d be 35 fewer women’s grants the front office would have to scrounge up to fill in the quota squares with equestrianism, archery and bowling.

But my main interest is getting college football back to a time when there were fewer people to be moved around on the checkerboard, when you could get to know them as people rather than itinerant numbers.

Why is KU basketball so fabulously popular? You can see the players close-up and often get to know them as people rather than chess pieces. Phog Allen was asked why basketball was such a hit with women and, typical Phog: “When they put a self-starter in the automobile they made it a woman’s product.” No crank, easy start; women love basketball as much as men because they don’t have to figure out who is shuttling in and out wearing those buckets, cages and visors gridders hide behind.

Gimme the old double-duty football and through its presence lessen the impact that 85 grants make on the cash drawer. How about turning football back into an all-around sport instead of letting it continue as a collection of creatures with unique forms of excellence like those finely tuned canines at the Westminster Dog Show.

Back to the money, it’s not as important to me as the concept of pluralism. In 1998-99, the Michigan football team drew an average of 110,965 spectators (a national record) and won the Citrus Bowl. The men’s hockey team made the second round of the NCAA tournament which it won the year before. The men’s gymnastics team won the national title. At the end of that year, the athletic department had a $3.8 million shortfall for a 21-sport program. A $1 million saving from 35 scholarships still would have left almost a $3 million debt.

But even if non-platoon football didn’t balance the budget, it would be a lot more enjoyable for most folks to watch. Then if they wanted specialists, they could watch the pros  who might have to make those huge coaching staffs earn their dinner.