Confirmed: Brandon Golson No Longer a Cardinal

Our good friend Mike Rutherford with Card Chronicle caught the official confirmation of the story we reported earlier this week. Brandon Golson has left the Louisville program after his qualifying test score was thrown out. Here is his Card Chronicle post:

According to Gamecock Central, a Scout.com site covering the South Carolina Gamecocks, freshman linebacker Brandon Golson is expected to sign a letter of intent soon to play at Gray Military Academy in Columbia, S.C.

Golson, a former four-star recruit, committed to South Carolina in 2010 but failed to qualify. He then committed to Louisville in January of 2011 and participated in spring practice for the Cardinals.

"I know (Louisville head coach) Charlie Strong hated to see him go," Golson's high school head coach Walter Wilson said. "But it was just one of those things." 

So what happened between Golson and Louisville? Here's the deal according to author Scott Hood:

In the final chapter of an inquiry that launched in 2010, the NCAA recently red-flagged Golson’s ACT scores and eventually threw them out. By doing so, Golson was labeled a partial qualifier.

One problem: the Big East doesn’t allow their schools to accept partial qualifiers. So, Louisville was forced to drop him from the football program, sources said, even though Golson enjoyed a solid spring and was challenging for the starting job at middle linebacker.

The Big East has another rule, sources said, that states that if a player is ineligible to play at one conference school because of his status as a partial qualifier, he is prohibited from joining another school in the league.

Thus, once he finally joins Gray Military, Golson will be free to sign with any school he chooses.

 

This is a really big blow and a bad break for a kid who would have been a stud here.

We took a beating from some of the local Louisville media for what we reported earlier in the week. We're happy to see that we've been vindicated. Conversely, we're disappointed for Brandon Golson because he looked like a very talented player with a bright future.