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Report: Current Prime Prep players aren’t clear of the NCAA yet

Buried in Jeff Goodman’s latest post on his Insider blog over at ESPN.com is an interesting note about Prime Prep, the Texas charter school that was launched by Deion Sanders last year. If you remember, two Prime Prep products in the Class of 2013 -- LSU’s Jordan Mickey and TCU’s Karviar Shepard -- were initially ruled ineligible by the NCAA before having that decision overruled on appeal.

According to Goodman, that ruling shouldn’t be considered an ‘all clear’ for the athletes currently at Prime Prep:

That doesn’t mean that Deion Sanders’ Prime Prep has been given the green light by the NCAA. The NCAA cleared the players because it felt that both were given misleading information by the school, sources told ESPN.com.

That isn’t good news for Emmanuel Mudiay, a top five recruit in the Class of 2014, or Elijah Thomas, a top ten recruit in the Class of 2015. Both made the decision to return to Prime Prep for the 2013-2014 season after spending last season at the school.

The NCAA’s Eligibility Center website currently has this statement posted regarding Prime Prep: “This program is under an extended evaluation period to determine if it meets the academic requirements for NCAA cleared status. During this evaluation period, the courses listed below may be subject to further review on a case-by-case basis, which will require additional academic documentation.”

The issue, which John Infante of the BylawBlog touched on last month, appears not to be whether or not Prime Prep’s courses are approved as core courses, but whether or not they are being taught in a manner that’s deemed academically sound. Mudiay told NBCSports.com in July that Prime Prep used VSchoolz, an online educational system, in class.