South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier admitted it: He didn't vote for Florida's Tim Tebow on the SEC's first team. And he feels terrible about it.

Spurrier, who says he's never filled out a ballot in his 17 years in the SEC, said his director of operations filled out his ballot and gave it to the coach for his approval. Spurrier gave it a look ("I didn't glance at it carefully," he said) and approved it. As a result, Jevan Snead made South Carolina's ballot. The reasoning was that Florida had so many players on the list besides Tebow.

The next day, he read in the paper that Tebow wasn't a unanimous selection. He called his director of operations to make sure it wasn't South Carolina. It was.

"That's my fault," said Spurrier, who claims he didn't sleep well last night because of the gaffe. "I take full responsibility. And I apologized to Tim Tebow. We should not have messed that up. We screwed it up pretty bad. I'm embarrassed about it. I feel bad about it. And that's the way it happened."

The story has a happy ending. Spurrier called the SEC offices to correct his mistake. He changed his vote, so Tebow is now a unanimous selection by the coaches.

"We made a mistake. And I made a mistake," he said. "Tim Tebow is not only the best quarterback in this league, I thnk he's the best football player in the country. And what he's done there, I believe he and Danny Wuerffel will go down as two of the best quarterbacks, maybe the best to ever play college football. That's how good he is. I admire him. And I apologize to him. He should have been on that ballot. I messed that up. I'm trying to correct it the best I can. I take full blame for it."

Finally, our long, national nightmare is over.