they figured out he wasn't going to qualify with the extra semester of prep school and since they had an extra ship after franking the jet, they enrolled him now as a partial qualifier, starting his partial qualifier sitting out year a semester early.
you can infer that they either think he's better than anyone they think they'll get in '14, or that they think they absolutely have to have a(nother) backup pg for the 2nd semester of '13-14.