Beasley cleared to play

Rivals.com

As mentioned in a post last week, we listed incoming LB recruit William Beasley as one of several who failed to qualify. Well, turns out there was some sort of error on the NCAA Clearinghouse's part that missed some of Beasley's credits initially. Now that the error has been caught, Beasley is cleared to play.

This is good news for the Pack for a number of reasons.

One, anytime you see a young man put in the time and effort necessary to earn a scholarship offer from a BCS school, only to have the carpet yanked out from under them at the last moment, it breaks your heart. So you root for those folks who do the work to get things squared away in time to not miss a beat.

Second, linebacker is a definite area of weakness for the Pack this season. As a three-star recruit, standing 6'-2" and 225, Beasley has the skill and size to play right away if the Pack needs him. Given our injury state of recent years, there always seems to be one group that takes a big hit during the course of the year (running backs last season). The linebacking corps is one that can ill afford a single player to go down. Beasley gives a small matter of insurance in the case that someone does.

This is not the first time Wolfpack fans have seen one of their recruits fall victim to a Clearinghouse issue. If you'll recall, Tramain Hall hit a last-second hiccup on his admissions process back in 2002 that ultimately delayed his entrance to State nearly two years and cost him a year of eligibility.

We're fortunate that Beasley did not have to go down that same road.