Check for Hanging Chads, Tim Tebow Somehow Not Unanimously All-SEC

Today the SEC released the Coaches' Preseason Football Team. There were three unanimous selections: Tennessee safety Eric Berry, LSU offensive lineman Ciron Black, and Alabama wide receiver Julio Jones. Noticing something surprising? Yep, someone didn't vote for Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. And before you throw Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt under the bus, assuming he voted for his player, Jevan Snead, over Tebow, keep this in mind, coaches weren't allowed to vote for their own players. So presumably someone other than Nutt left Tebow off the first team.

Wow.

But that's not even the most surprising detail.

The SEC, home of the last three national champions, is as weak at starting quarterback as the league has ever been. Snead of Ole Miss was a second-teamer. But third team? How about a tie between South Carolina's Stephen Garcia and, wait for it, Kentucky's Mike Hartline, the same Mike Hartline who was replaced for the second half of the season by a punt-returning freshman wide receiver named Randall Cobb.

I'm heading down for SEC Media Days next week (check back then because we'll have some cool coverage), and I can't wait to see every coach squirm when they're asked whether they voted for Tebow as a first-team selection. Unless it was Lane Kiffin who did it. In which case Kiffin will lead off his opening remarks to the media by saying, "I just don't think Tebow's that good." Odds that someone other than Kiffin admits making that decision? Zero percent. It's one of many reasons these ballots should be public.

Otherwise, I just fundamentally refuse to believe that any SEC coach could have seen Tebow play over the past three years and not thought, "I would sacrifice my first three children for a chance to coach a team with him at quarterback."

Seriously.

And I'll even make this argument, if you put Tebow on Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Ole Miss, or South Carolina, they automatically become the team to beat in the SEC. Put him on Florida, already the most talented team in the conference, and the Gators have put more distance between themselves and the second best team in 2009 than any SEC team has in my life.

Notre Dame fans must be salivating.

In the meantime, any coach who didn't put Tebow on the first team should have their coaching credentials rescinded immediately. Unless, and this is the one caveat, they're such a braggart that they are publicly willing to admit to their voting decision. Perhaps under the misguided notion that this will somehow work to their team's advantage. I have no idea how that could possibly be the case, but nothing else has really worked against Tebow over the past few years either. Unless you're Tebow's kryptonite, Auburn. So maybe it was Gene Chizik.

But more interesting than the controversy at the top of the quarterback heap, is the dearth of proven signal-callers below Tebow and Snead. (By the way, if at least one SEC coach who didn't vote for Tebow also didn't vote for Snead, then I think we need to have them DNA tested to prove they aren't the biological father of Garcia or Hartline.)

As the SEC has become more competitive, the quarterback position has become more and more important in determining whether or not a team can compete for a championship. Gone are the days when SEC quarterbacks could simply be place-holders alongside great defenses. In fact, I'd like to throw out this idea, the SEC is more like the NFL than any other league in college football because just like in the NFL, success comes down to who lines up under center for your team. I think you can make an argument that this season's final standings will be in direct correlation to how the quarterback's end up ranking overall. And if you're a fan of SEC teams other than Florida or Ole Miss, the quarterback depth has to scare you.

Last year, Hartline (remember, as voted by the coaches to be tied for the third best quarterback in the SEC), completed 55 percent of his passes for 1,666 yards, nine touchdowns and eight interceptions. He was benched in favor of Cobb, who has now been returned to wide receiver full time. He did win six of the seven games he started. That's something, I suppose. But it's also telling that at the end of last season, Kentucky's punt returner stayed on the field to play quarterback. Have you ever seen that before? And then the SEC coaches selected the guy who the punt returner was starting over as the third best quarterback in the league. Can that really be true?

Per the SEC coaches Hartline is tied with Garcia. Really? This isn't a joke? When he saw this, Steve Spurrier must have thrown his visor. If anything, this award might as well go to Spurrier. It shows that other SEC coaches still believe he has the capability of melding a quarterback into a star, even if that hasn't happened in the last four years, during which time Spurrier's tallied up a 15-17 SEC record. So far, Garcia has distinguished himself better for his off-field keying of a professor's car than for his on-field play. Last year he threw for 832 yards, six touchdowns, and eight interceptions. He completed 53 percent of his passes and rebounded nicely from his football suspension that lasted, oh by the way, until 13 days before the season started.

And these two guys are in the top quartile of starting SEC signal callers? A guy who a punt-returner started in front of and another one who has been arrested three times since arriving on campus.

Who'd they beat out? LSU's Jordan Jefferson, Tennessee's Jonathan Crompton, Auburn's Kodi Burns, Vandy's Larry Smith, Arkansas's Ryan Mallett, Georgia's Joe Cox, Alabama's Greg McElroy, and Mississippi State's Tyson Lee. Look at that bunch. Doubtless some will play well. But has there ever been a less-proven group at the top of the SEC?

If I put four guys in front of you and asked you to pick out Larry Smith could you? Greg McElroy (assuming his Bama bangs weren't visible), Joe Cox? Don't these all kind of sound like made-up cable-repairmen names? Or an Irish dance troupe.

But who knows, maybe that lack of recognition is not an indictment after all.

Last year, if I'd asked you to point to Jevan Snead and surrounded him with three black guys of the same height you definitely wouldn't have picked the white guy. Now he's indisputably the second best quarterback in the league. Unless you're the coach who picked him above Tim Tebow. Then, he's the best around.

For the rest of us who aren't Ole Miss or Florida fans, it's going to be a long and crazy trip this fall. Because outside of Oxford and Gainesville, there's no one under center that fans can completely trust.