What if all coaches had restricted transfers the way Bo Ryan is restricting Jarrod Uthoff? (UPDATED: Now only other Big Ten schools off-limits)

UPDATE: Thursday, Jarrod Uthoff met with Wisconsin Athletic Director Barry Alvarez and Associate AD Justin Doherty. The upshot: Badgers Coach Bo Ryan is supportive of denying Uthoff the chance to get an athletic scholarship from a fellow Big Ten school, but Uthoff is free to be contacted by any other school.

This makes a lot of what follows obsolete, but such is life in the blogging game.

By not granting Jarrod Uthoff of Cedar Rapids the option to transfer to any school via atheltic scholarship in the Big Ten and ACC, as well as Iowa State and Marquette, Bo Ryan has brought the wrath of many to his doorstep.

But can you imagine the joys and experiences other players would have been denied with similar restrictions? Not to mention the teams that ended up with those players, and their fans.

What if Iowa State had told Adam Haluska he were free to go anywhere from ISU on an athletic scholarship, except for the University of Iowa?

What if Minnesota had told Royce White he could go anywhere but a school in a border state? Like, you know, Iowa State.

What if Northern Iowa's Ben Jacobson had told his buddy and former boss, Greg McDermott, that there was no way he was letting Doug McDermott out his commitment to UNI to join his dad at Creighton? (Impossible to imagine if you know Jacobson, but play along with the premise)

I could go on and on and on.

Major-college athletics are for the student-athletes, except when they're not. But they're almost always for the NCAA and the coaches and administrators who make handsome salaries on the backs of those athletes.

I don't think a single high school recruit signs a national letter-of-intent thinking about where his or her second destination will be after the first one doesn't pan out. I don't think too many athletes are ever particularly happy or comfortable about the prospect of leaving a school that made a commitment to them. But life isn't tidy. Human nature being what it is, we often believe there's something better out there. Sometimes, the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.

People change jobs. People move from one city to another. Personal relationships come apart.

People change colleges.

My sophomore year, I needed a program to keep track of who returned from summer break and who scattered in the wind. I still don't know what became of one of my freshman-year roommates. I just hope he used his powers for good instead of evil.

I hope Uthoff ends up at the college he wants to attend with the coach he wants as his coach. But he should know, if he doesn't already (he's now a national-name without having played a minute of college ball) that he'll be scrutinized as a player wherever he goes because of his involvement in this controversial story that has reached as far as "Pardon The Interruption." Go to the 8:05 mark to hear Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon discuss this on their 4/18 show.

I've done a little editing from my original version, starting now.

To hear Ryan on ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike Show Thursday morning, click here.

Ryan said he hasn't dealt with transfers, so he called other coaches to ask them how to deal with them.

"The coaches are so proud with the way I've handled this for this reason: What other option does a coach have if they don't quite understand why a person is transferring? A person red-shirted last year, no issues, no problem, he told me on the phone how much he respected the program and everything, and I was fine with that. Perfectly fine with the transfer. ... I had no issue with it, and everybody around here knows that.

"But this has taken on, with accusations, everybody remembers the accusations, but very few people in life remember the outcome. So what we've done is. we've given the young man a chance to go appeal the schools that he really wants to go to, and that's all we can do."

"When you say you block it, all you're saying is there has to be conversation about it."

"I am doing what every other coach in the country has done. ... Maybe the only thing we have as coaches is you (the player) appeal it, and then we have a conversation."

For the complete transcription of the interview, go to this post at Scott Doctherman's blog.

Madison has always been a bastion of free speech, and here are a couple of signs someone posted at the Badgers' Kohl Center: (Photos by Erik Ouimette)