When I sat down to write this column, I'd originally planned to take Bobby Bowden to task. I didn't agree with the legendary coach's decision to not release Brandon Warren from his Florida State scholarship papers.

A release would allow the former Alcoa football star to transfer to Tennessee this Fall. And if a kid wants to transfer, shouldn't he be allowed to do just that? Especially by a coach who spends so much time talking about "character" and "helping young men"?

But as I laid out the Warren/FSU timeline, I realized that this situation is a lot more gray than many people seem to think. And it's not all that different from another transfer situation that Tennessee went through just a couple of years ago.

In 2006, Brandon Warren was a highly sought-after recruit coming out of Alcoa High School. His mother's health was a major issue during the recruitment. She had successfully battled cancer, but had lost a kidney and suffered damage to her pancreas in the process.

Despite the health concerns, Warren chose his dream school, Florida State, over nearby Tennessee. And last Fall, as a Seminole, Warren set school freshman records as a tight end and was named a freshman All-American. His mother's health also worsened while he was away.

Here's where it really gets interesting.

In late January of this year, Warren played host to his former Alcoa teammate, Rae Sykes, during the defensive end's official visit to Florida State. Sykes, much to the chagrin of the FSU faithful, eventually spurned the 'Noles and chose the Vols as his college home.

And just a couple of weeks after Sykes' visit to State, Warren departed Tallahassee in mid-semester (not good for FSU's academic progress report) and returned home to Alcoa to be near his ailing mother.

He asked for his release from FSU in hopes of playing football at UT (alongside his old teammate, Sykes).

But Bowden, who usually grants releases to players transferring outside the state of Florida, has put the kibosh on that idea, refusing to let Warren out of his FSU deal.

The feelings in Tallahassee are apparently: 1) Warren simply got homesick; 2) Warren didn't do FSU any favors by leaving mid-semester, and 3) Warren probably steered Sykes to Tennessee DURING Sykes' visit to Florida State.

In a letter explaining his position, Bowden spelled out another reason for not allowing the release.

"If players are allowed to break a contract whenever they wish, we do not need the National Letter of Intent. Without it, we would allow unscrupulous coaches to steal players from schools, and it would costs thousands of dollars every time this occurs."

I found that bit about "unscrupulous coaches" pretty interesting. Allowing kids to move around at will would create a lot of problems, but the only one Bowden mentioned is the "stealing" of players.

Perhaps the folks in Tallahassee believe they have a fourth reason to be upset.

But as much as this has riled up Vol fans, it's not all that different from Bruce Pearl's 2005 decision to refuse Vol signee Tyler Smith a release from his letter of intent.

Once Pearl took over the UT program from Buzz Peterson, he tried to contact Smith. But according to the coach, Smith's father never allowed him to speak with the young man one-on-one.

Then the Middle Tennessee star and his father asked for a release from UT. Pearl, in the face of quite a bit of criticism, denied the request.

Smith went on to a prep school for a year, then to Iowa (where he starred last season), and now, ironically, is looking to transfer to Tennessee for the 2007-08 season.

The UT athletic department eventually uncovered some secondary violations in the school's original recruitment of Smith and distanced themselves from a Vol booster because of it.

All that said, my feelings in 2005 were that Smith should have been granted his release from Tennessee. "If he doesn't want to be here" was my logic.

My feelings earlier this week were that Warren should have been granted his release from Florida State. "If he doesn't want to be here" was again the thinking.

But looking at the facts and the questionable circumstances in both cases, I realize now that I was wrong.

Oh, I still think that student-athletes are too much looked at as slices of beef. Bowden's letter makes his former tight end sound like a commodity rather than a human being.

"We spent thousands of dollars recruiting him plus hundreds of hours visiting him and his family." In other words, "we paid for him, he's ours."

And I still believe it's a shame that coaches can come and go from one job to another, while players are bound to their schools with iron chains.

But in these two cases, it seems that there were extenuating circumstances that led both Pearl and Bowden to go against their normal policies of granting releases.

In Tyler Smith's case, it seems that everything will now work out anyway. Hopefully, the same will eventually happen for Brandon Warren and his family.

But I can see why Bowden believes that something fishy is going on. Just as Pearl did in 2005. So while I would let the young man transfer, I can't argue with a coach trying to protect his program.

John Pennington hosts The Hall's Salvage Sports Source on Sunday at 11 a.m. on WATE. Width1Width3Width7416

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