The National, 6/7/12: Principle.

Ain't Nothin' Gonna Hold Me Down: Jarrod Uthoff wanted nothing more to do with Bo Ryan or Wisconsin. Bo Ryan's response to this was to be a gigantic feminine hygiene device, and initially insist that Uthoff was not allowed a waiver to transfer to basically an entire tenth of Division I, before backing down and trimming that list to just the Big Ten.

And now Uthoff's going to a Big Ten school anyway, flashing a defiant and principled middle finger to the entire system. Iowa is where Uthoff really wanted to be all along, and how he's sacking up and proving it; he'll have to pay his own way this year and sit out (for the second straight year).

The Stone's Starting to Wobble: Expect it to lurch free and begin rolling downhill any moment. Florida State's Board of Trustees meeting, which will be attended by FSU President Eric Barron, has a new item on the agenda. It starts with a B and ends with a 12, and it's not a vitamin. The rights issue is still a huge problem for the ACC football-first schools, and Chris Smith at Forbes explains exactly why. Short version: Swofford erred in not retaining at least a small slice of football and men's basketball action for the individual schools, which help in monetizing the third-tier non-revenue deals. Let Florida State or Clemson or Virginia Tech keep just one football game a year -- their least appealing one from a television perspective, no less -- and that can actually provide the backbone for a comprehensive third-tier deal worth at least a few million. You can get away with not doing this if your conference network is as crazy profitable as the BTN. When your conference's media deal is only worth $17M, you can't.

You Think They'll Change Their Fight Song and Add Corndog References?: Texas A&M is used to playing a Vitally Important rivalry game on Thanksgiving, and it looks like they're going to continue that hallowed tradition. Only it'll be against Louisiana State, not the Longhorns. This really isn't a big surprise; lost amid all the talk of A&M and Arkansas renewing hostilities was the small detail that A&M and LSU have had an on-again, off-again rivalry for 125 years too. Hell, they used to play twice a year once upon a time.

Diablerie: John L. Smith wants the Razorbacks to be dignified, so it's time for Etiquette 101. ... Northwestern's admissions office refused to admit Mislav Brzoja (who had a 4.0 GPA in high school, no less), and now Sippin' on Purple is discussing whether or not Northwestern might need to lower its admission standards for athletes. Next thing you know, they'll be a lousy diploma mill just like Duke. ... Mississippi State has announced they're getting new uniforms (alas, no visuals yet). Tom Fornelli suggests they wear cowbells. ... Could USC's supposedly-crippling scholarship limits thanks to Reggie Bush actually be helping them? ... Odds for every Division I football game in 2012 right here. By the spread, K-State should go 7-5, but four of those losses are within a TD, and two within a FG.

Spring Championships: Congratulations to the Alabama Crimson Tide softball team, who rebounded from a game one loss to take the final two games of the WCWS Championship Series. Oklahoma had a 3-0 lead when it started raining. Just minutes before, Oklahoma's coach had said, on the air, that they'd play in rain, snow, whatever, they didn't care... but once it started raining, suddenly they didn't want to be on the field. The controversy was inflamed even further when the Alabama players refused to take shelter in the dugout while the Sooner players remained inside. Eventually, the NCAA said "Gimme a break, go play ball", and Alabama promptly wiped out the deficit; they held on for a 5-4 win.

We have to take a moment to tip our hats to the Tide's phenomenal year. The championship is Alabama's fourth of the 2011-12 academic calendar, along with football, women's gymnastics, and women's golf (not to mention a second-place finish for men's golf); it also vaulted Alabama's women into third place in the Capital One Cup standings, although still way too far behind Stanford to matter. (The men, on the other hand, have an outside shot at erasing North Carolina's three-point lead if the Tide track team can claw their way into at least ninth place at...)

The track and field championships in Des Moines, which are the final events of the 2011-12 college athletic season. After day one, Texas leads the men's meet with 17 points, followed by Nebraska at 13, LSU at 11, and... SOUTHERN UTAH?? at 10. (USU earned those 10 points on the literal heels of Cameron Levins, who won the 10K.) Kansas State, behind Mantas Silkauskas's seventh-place finish in the long jump, is tied for 16th with 2 points. On the women's side, Stanford leads with 18 points, followed by Oklahoma at 14, Penn State at 11, and San Diego State at 10. K-State's not on the board.