With the addition of Butler, the ICAL reunited all former members of the IIAA except the state's "big three" major college programs: Indiana, Purdue, and Notre Dame.
In the early years of the league (1903-7), the additional factor of some members having dual ICAL and IIAA membership muddied the waters even more.
But the association had not enforced the freshman rule (because its smaller members had too few athletes on campus to field teams without freshmen), and prior to 1907 the Western Conference had not pressed the issue.
[10] When it finally did, Notre Dame aligned with Indiana and Purdue in insisting the rule be followed, completing the separation of the major athletic powers from the rest of the state's colleges.
[11] The IIAA continued to exist after 1907, but its only official events were an annual track meet and tennis tournament, which remained open to participation by the smaller schools as long as their rosters conformed to Western Conference rules, including the ban on freshmen.
The schools that had joined the ICAL could also continue to schedule the "big three" in football, baseball, or basketball (and sometimes did so, for the money or the prestige), as long as they honored the freshman rule in those contests.
The allegation that the competing game in Indianapolis hurt the gate for what would have been the primary football attraction on that day echoed a similar dispute that had roiled the IIAA in 1894, also involving DePauw.
[15] Finally, in 1920, Wabash also left the conference, but for the opposite reason, to take advantage of the opportunity to play more major college teams, especially in football.
[19] By the following year, negotiations were well underway to replace both the IIAA and the ICAL with a comprehensive state athletic association that could accommodate the needs of the "big three" as well as the smaller schools, and coherently govern their interactions with each other.