Steve Spurrier's confusion over national voting age

Do not look to college football coaches for any commentary on American democracy.

Asked on Tuesday whether he'd allow his players time to vote between class, practice and game preparation, South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier replied, "Our players that are 21?"

The national voting age is 18, of course. Spurrier is obviously confusing the 26th Amendment, which declared that the voting age shall not be set higher than 18, with the National Minimum Drinking Age Act, which set the drinking age at 21.

Every player on South Carolina's roster is allowed to vote; not every player is allowed to drink, by law. Some players can do both -- vote and then drink, especially if they don't like the results.

Perhaps Spurrier, like Alabama's Nick Saban, is under the spell of "football season." Last week, Saban told ESPN's Samantha Steele that he had forgotten that Oct. 31 was his birthday until his wife reminded him.

"I appreciate people calling, but it really is hard to almost acknowledge, personally, that something different is happening, because you're in such a routine of what you feel you need to do to get the team ready to play the game," Saban said.

"Football season's not a job," he said to Steele, "but a way of life."

Voting: also a way of life. And readily available to all Gamecocks 18 and older.