DAY OF DECISION FOR COLLEGE FOOTBALL RECRUITS : CLU Recruiting Delayed by Scholarship Cutbacks

Bob Shoup, for 25 years the football coach at Cal Lutheran, paused to consider the question.

How are the recruiting wars going?

“We’re not even on the battlefield,” he finally answered.

Because of a $15,000 cut in athletic-scholarship funding, Cal Lutheran will not sign football players until next fall. Shoup is hopeful the Kingsmen can attract a few leftovers after other colleges have sifted through this year’s crop of football recruits.

Shoup said the fiscal cutbacks were schoolwide and that there was no misuse of funds within the athletic department. Nevertheless, the timing of the cuts could be devastating to the Cal Lutheran football team.

Cal Lutheran, which lost 12 players to graduation, will begin spring drills with 28 players, according to Shoup. “We won’t have any new recruits, plus we’ll lose 16 players who play either baseball or track,” Shoup said. “We’ve got some grievous losses and, at this point, not a single replacement.”