Who says nothing ever gets done at SEC Media Days? After a week in which 11 coaches got browbeat over whether they dared to think that Jevan Snead was a better quarterback than Tim Tebow, we find out that it all came down to a mistake. A rather bizarre mistake by South Carolina's director of football operations, who apparently thought it more important to squeeze Joe Haden onto the first team ballot instead of Tim Tebow, but a slip-up nonetheless.
Once Steve Spurrier -- a Florida guy through and through who is merely a Gamecock rental for a few years -- this was a horrifying mistake. His careless decision to only scan his own All-SEC ballot caused a week of consternation that seemed to suggest that someone out there saw the Golden Tebow as something less than the best player in the conference, which the Head Ball Coach clearly thinks he is.
"But it's my fault," an apologetic Spurrier -- things I thought I'd never say -- said during his Friday presentation at SEC Media Days. "I take full responsibility. I messed that up. I apologized to Tim Tebow. We screwed it up pretty badly. I'm embarrassed about it."
It would almost seem too much to believe, except that Spurrier has always gotten in trouble by telling the truth. And the confession threw him entirely off-message Friday; of the 30 questions posed to Spurrier, 10 concerned Tebow, the All-SEC snafu or exactly which ballots he does and doesn't fill out. (He insisted he takes more care with his coaches' poll Top 25 ballot, which is comforting considering it's a key factor in who gets to play for the national title.)
Once he realized his error, Spurrier corrected it, and the official SEC press release has been revised to show Tebow as one of the now four unanimous selections.
But you have to wonder about the future damage to the All-SEC team, as Gene Chizik did. "I don't want to open myself up to answer every time somebody doesn't agree with who votes for who," he said, before showing that he is indeed not a stupid man by saying he did support Tebow's first-team status.
Now, though, every reporter and credentialed blogger with a beef will head to Hoover with a blueprint for how to get the All-SEC team "corrected" to his or her liking.
To use a metaphor Nick Saban might enjoy, this is why you don't negotiate with terrorists.
Once they see it works, they never stop.