George Connor, one of college football's best linemen ever and then one of the best linebackers ever in professional football, died Monday at a hospital in Evanston, Ill. He was 78.

Connor played two years at Holy Cross, then spent two years in the Navy and played the next two years, 1946 and 1947, on unbeaten teams at Notre Dame. In 1946, he became the first winner of the Outland Trophy, given to the top interior lineman in college football.

At both Holy Cross and Notre Dame, Connor was an offensive and defensive tackle and an All-American. When the sportswriter Grantland Rice saw him play, he said, ''Connor is the closest thing to a Greek god since Apollo.''

After graduating from Notre Dame, Connor played for the Chicago Bears from 1948 through 1955. His first contract guaranteed him $13,000 a year for three years, remarkably high at the time for a lineman.

He started with the Bears as an offensive and defensive tackle, but in 1949, seeking a way to stop the end sweeps of the burly Steve Van Buren of the Philadelphia Eagles, the Bears moved him to linebacker because of his strength and speed.

George Leo Connor was born in Chicago on Jan. 21, 1925, two months prematurely. He weighed less than three pounds and was given less than a 10 percent chance to survive. He was placed on a diet of boiled cabbage juice, which his mother, a nurse, fed him hourly for a year with an eyedropper. He grew to 6 feet 3 inches and 240 pounds.

He retired as a player because of an injured knee and was elected to the Halls of Fame for college football in 1963 and pro football in 1975. He became an assistant coach for the Bears and a broadcaster for the Bears and Notre Dame football. After years as a sales executive for a corrugated-box maker, he brokered boxes on his own.

He is survived by his wife, Suzanne; two sons, George Jr. and Albert, and a brother, Jack, all of Chicago; and a sister, Mary Ellen Woodward of Cleveland. In eight pro seasons, wearing no face mask, no rib pads and no gloves, Connor missed only six games.

''He was indestructible,'' said his Notre Dame coach, Frank Leahy.

Not quite. As Connor's wife said, ''He went through 32 surgeries on everything in his body except his head.''

That did not diminish Connor's feelings about football. He told The Chicago Tribune a year ago: ''I'd do it again. I loved the game. I loved the practices. I loved my teammates. We had pride. We had fun. We had loyalty. Now it's like night and day. All the players are rich. They go their own way. These players today, I feel sorry for them.''

George Connor (1925)