Wandering aimlessly around the great planet we call the Southeastern Conference:

Rumors of Steve Spurrier’s demise are greatly exaggerated. A few weeks ago, when scribes from around the south gathered at the SEC Media Days and Annual Gathering of the Reprobates, The Ol’ Ball Coach was uncharacteristically mellow, for lack of a better term.

He was in the spotlight for a sin of omission, not for the prospects of his own South Carolina Gamecocks. After relentless investigation by a small army of reporters who had been nearly put to sleep by Gene Chizik (among others), it had been determined that Spurrier was the one coach who did not vote for Florida’s Tim Tebow as the SEC’s top deity in the pre-season coaches’ poll.

Truth is, no one really cared about his ball team, because no one expected much of anything from it. Spurrier was washed up, according to the conventional wisdom. He hadn’t recreated the magic from his Florida days, and was just phoning it in. Even his State of the Coach address was lacking in its usual bravado.

But after Thursday night’s upset of fourth-ranked Ole Miss, you can forget all that.

Truth is, nothing really changed about Darth Visor. It was just the talent he had to work with. Recruiting in Florida, with its huge pool of top prospects, is one thing. Recruiting in the Palmetto State is quite another.

But the talent he had stepped up against the Rebels, especially when it stopped quarterback Jevan Snead (Spurrier’s pick in the poll, before he officially changed it to Tebow) on the last two plays. The stat that jumps out at me the most is third-down conversions: in 13 opportunities, Ole Miss converted just one, and was also 1-for-4 in fourth-down conversions.

That’ll put a sly grin back on The Ol’ Ball Coach’s face. And that rumblig sound you hear is everyone scrambling to get off the Ole Miss bandwagon. My sympathies to Shepard Smith, anchorman for Fox News Channel and one of the Rebels’ best-know fans. He’s cussin’ a bunch on his way back to New York today.

Slive to Tiffin and Meyer: Shut up. Speaking of Fox News, it seems that the SEC has its own version of the feud between Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. The opponents in this case are Tennessee’s Lane Kiffin and Florida’s Urban Meyer. They’ve been carrying on a war of words, with Kiffin doing most of the shooting, ever since Kiffin set foot in Knoxville.

Now comes word that SEC Commissioner Mike Slive has a message for the pair: Put a lid on it.

It’s not the first time Slive has told coaches to stop the yakkity. But the conference confirmed to USA Today that the boss man did have a little come-to-Jesus talk with Meyer and Tiffin. It seems that the conference believes the verbal war is a bit unseemly.

And that’s a shame, because there’s nothing that sportswriters love more than an ongoing feud between high-profile coaches.

Oh wait, there is one thing we love more. Free food.

And speaking of SEC coverage: Some of you may have noticed that we’ve started our own coverage of Alabama and Auburn football. For that, you can thank my colleagues at our sister newspaper, The Cullman Times.

For some time, they (and we) got our coverage from a syndicated package out of Atlanta. Then someone had an idea: “Hey, we can do better, especially when it comes to our teams.”

And so, Justin Graves and his staff up at our “mother ship” have begun coverage of the Tide and Tigers that no one else has. Not the wire services, not the big daily papers.

Becuase we know there’s one thing you love as much — if not more — than local high school sports. And that’s anything to do with “Roll Tide” or “War Eagle.”

Robert Carter is the sports editor of The North Jefferson News.