The Sept. 29, 1908 NYT reports on academic eligibility at Yale:

The chances are slim for Arthur Brides, Yale's all-around football star, wearing a uniform this season. Brides was to-day definitely notified that he cannot join the eleven unless he removes the deficiencies in his studies. There is little chance that Brides can fill the demand, but he will pluckily try to do so before the big games. He will not report with the team for weeks, and the football coaches say that they regard him as out of the competition.

Fairly impressive, although it is Yale after all, that before the NCAA promulgated rules concerning academic eligibility, at least one case of enforcement of standards could be found. Likely this is the problem: the fact that Brides's story was such big news indicates that such academic enforcement wasn't that common and thus, eventually, the NCAA will enact its own rules.