I don't think anybody would know that. But I'm pretty sure we were giving mid 40s pretty routinely in the days before freshmen were eligible for varsity play and had their on team.
If you found somebody really old, there were an unbelievable number of guys in 1945 and 46 who tried out for college football teams, but most of those guys were going on the GI bill and not on an athletic scholarship. I've heard stories about the ;46 team when Bud was an assistant coach and Jim Tatum the HC. Lots of available guys returning from WWII. I think they may have had over 100 new guys in 1946. It was the turnaround year for OU football.
It's kind of like Plano football becoming great the year my family moved to Plano. It was a coincidence. John Clark got to Plano in '64 and it was also the first year the school district integrated. My arrival was a coincidence. The 100 plus guys was just a coincidence. Bud Wilkinson coming in '46 was the reason. It changed OU football forever. The talent was there. Tatum the first year, and Bud for the next 17 knew what to do with it.
Not sure of the exact amount in my class in 1969, but that was the Joe Wylie, Greg Pruitt class. I think it was about 43 or 44. It varied from year to year. In those days, there were no national limitations. The only limitations were from your conference. As late as my senior year, Joe Washington was an incoming freshman who'd signed an LOI with more than one school. There wasn't a national letter. So you wouldn't know exactly who was going to show up until they did in August. But there were no total limitations, only yearly limitations until after I graduated. I don't think the 85 limit came for close to a decade after that. But not sure.
My senior year, was 1972, the first year of freshman eligibility on the varsity. And within a year or two, freshman teams went away.
I suspect my time at OU was among the top class numbers. Before about 1963 or 64, college football was one platoon, and there wasn't the need for as many players. So except for those immediately after WWII years, the highest numbers would likely have been from 64 to 73 or 74.