One of the themes of last week’s SEC Media Days was the pace of play as it relates to player safety. Several coaches had already made their preferences known, so this wasn’t exactly new ground. Still, it was a chance to get most everyone on the record.

Auburn’s Guz Malzahn, as you’d expect, spoke strongly in support of his up-tempo approach. “We completely believe in pace,” he began. Malzahn even turned the issue around, pointing a finger at defenses who try anything they can to slow things down.

We need to look at the guys on defense that are faking injuries to slow down these pace teams.

He’s right that there will be gamesmanship, but I admit that his line about fake injuries rubbed me the wrong way. The last time Georgia faced a Malzahn offense over at Auburn, we were treated to the Auburn crowd – praised for their “sophistication” by Gary Danielson – booing a Georgia player struggling to get off the field after taking a helmet to the knee. We come down on the side of the up-tempo teams, as Malzahn and Mark Richt do, but for some reason we can’t too worked up over Malzahn’s objection.