Andre Barrington was looking to make an impact this season on the Washington State University football team.

But he will have to wait until next year. The 2009 Federal Way High School graduate did not meet the NCAA’s minimum academic standards and will be ineligible for the 2010 Cougar football season.

Barrington, a redshirt freshman linebacker, will be allowed to practice with the team throughout the year. The Cougars begin football turnout Aug. 8 in Pullman.

The 6-foot-1, 231-pounder was attempting to earn some playing time at outside linebacker after redshirting last year. He will enter the 2011 season at Washington State as a sophomore.

Barrington was the Mirror’s Male Athlete of the Year during the 2008-09 school year after excelling in three sports for the Eagles.

Barrington’s senior year started by leading the Federal Way football team into the 16-team Class 4A state playoffs for the first time in 32 years, continued by earning all-tournament honors and helping the Eagles win the program’s first-ever state basketball championship, and culminated with a trip to the state track and field meet, where he finished third in the triple jump and sixth in the long jump.

Barrington will join ex-Eagle teammate Andru Pulu on the sidelines this season. Pulu, also a 2009 Federal Way graduate, was suspended indefinitely from the University of Washington football team after being sentenced to six months in jail for breaking a man’s nose during an off-campus fight in March. Pulu pleaded guilty to felony second-degree assault in April.

Pulu, a defensive end, punched and stomped a man who tried to break up a fight between the football player and another man during a house party just north of the UW campus. The victim was knocked unconscious and suffered a broken nose, requiring treatment at UW Medical Center, according to a police report.

Unlike Barrington, Pulu saw the field for the Huskies as a true freshman. Pulu played in 11 games last season as a backup defensive end and on special teams. He was expected to contend for a starting job in 2010, before his arrest.

Barrington and Pulu were the first Federal Way High School football players to sign with Division I programs since wide receiver Lake Dawson inked with Notre Dame back in 1990.