HOOVER — When Steve Spurrier heard one Southeastern Conference coach left Florida quarterback Tim Tebow off his first-team preseason All-SEC ballot, he was surprised.

His first reaction? “Some coach made a pretty serious mistake — either dumb or careless mistake — by not having Tim Tebow as his first selection,” Spurrier said.

But it was him. Well, not him, but South Carolina. Spurrier did not fill out the school’s ballot, but said he did glance at it when his director of football operations (Jamie Speronis) brought it to him.

“I looked at it quickly ... I can tell you two guys that were on there, A.J. Green and Carlos Dunlap. Those were the only two names I saw,” Spurrier said Friday morning at SEC Media Days. “I said that’s fine and signed off on it. Anyway, I did a poor job of looking at it.”

Spurrier didn’t think about it again until he read Thursday morning that somebody didn’t vote for Tebow. He called his operations director.

“I said, ‘Certainly, we had Tim Tebow,’” Spurrier said. “He said, ‘Well, actually, coach, we had Jevan Snead.’ He said something about we already had 10 Gators. I said that’s bad. But it’s my fault.”

The Old Ball Coach apologized for the error.

“I take full responsibility. I messed that up,” he said. “I apologized to Tim Tebow. We screwed it up pretty badly. I’m embarrassed about it. I feel bad about it. That’s the way it happened.”

The coach added he called the league office and asked if he could change South Carolina’s vote. He did change it and Tebow will be a unanimous pick.

“We made a mistake there. I made a mistake,” Spurrier said. “Tim Tebow is not only the best quarterback in this league, I think he’s the best in the country.”

Spurrier continued his mea culpa.

“I admire and respect him. I apologize to him. He should have been on that ballot. We messed up. I messed up. I’m trying to correct it the best I can. But I messed it up. I take full blame for it. That’s the way it happened. We’ll try to move on. I still feel very badly about what happened there.”

End of story? Not quite. After Spurrier fell on his sword, several media members twisted it around and pulled it out very slowly.

In the first 15 questions he faced, he was asked about Tebow or his ballot eight times. Talk about piling on.

And after all that, he was asked if Florida’s success under Urban Meyer bothered him.

“No, it doesn’t,” he said. “I pull for Florida when they’re not playing us. If we don’t win the SEC, I hope Florida does it. Urban has been the best coach in the country the last three years. Simple as that.”