EVANSTON, Ill. — The day Northwestern football players voted on unionization in April, the ballots were impounded, carried away from Ryan Field in two shiny silver locked boxes. Seven months later, they have yet to be counted. College sports look markedly different anyway. N.C.A.A. governance has been overhauled; universities and conferences have pledged greater scholarship protection and better health care; a federal judge has ruled that players can be paid for the use of their images.

“I don’t know if it’s changing because of us or something else,” Jimmy Hall, a senior linebacker at Northwestern, said after the Wildcats’ practice Wednesday. “But you get a little pride knowing that we set out with a goal to do something, and it’s starting to get accomplished.”

The debate over unionization exposed deep fault lines in the locker room and around campus here. The university and Coach Pat Fitzgerald campaigned to defeat the certification vote, forcing many players to balance their affection for Fitzgerald with a desire to influence the national conversation about college sports.

The union discussions have since subsided, publicly and privately, players say, while the National Labor Relations Board in Washington considers Northwestern’s appeal of a ruling by a regional director of the agency that said that scholarship players were university employees. A lawyer for the players is hopeful for a decision in the coming weeks, but as they have done all summer and fall, the players intend to keep their focus on football.