When the SEC named new supervisors of officials for football and men’s basketball in a three-day span this spring, reaction varied.

Most coaches, many players and the average fan already knew Gerald Boudreaux, the league’s new men’s basketball supervisor of officials. Boudreaux had 25 years as an official, working the Final Four five times including four championship games since 1999.

But nobody had a clue about Rogers Redding, the new supervisor of football officials. They didn’t know he had officiated in the old Southwest Conference, as well as the SEC and was also an SEC instant-replay official last season.

They also didn’t know that until the SEC hired Redding full time, his day job had been at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, where since ’03 he was vice president for academic affairs and professor of physics.

Yes, an academic egghead named Dr. Rogers Redding, who has a doctorate from Vanderbilt in physical chemistry, is about to be the voice of reason in a Southern-fried storm of football passion that lasts from September to December.

"People are already wondering what this physics geek is doing coming into the football world," Redding said with a laugh.

SEC commissioner Mike Slive said so far he’s gotten positive reviews about Redding and Boudreaux, who served last season as interim coordinator of men’s basketball officials.

"Rogers is an outstanding person with a great background," Slive said. "And Gerald is a special person.

"Even when he was officiating, he stood out with the way he related to everyone on the floor. When I had a chance to hire him as an interim and then full time, he was the only person I thought about."

While Boudreaux’s resume is well known, Redding, 63, has also worked two national championship games — the ’91 Orange Bowl (Colorado vs. Notre Dame) and the ’93 Sugar Bowl (Alabama vs. Miami). He also was the referee for the ’99 SEC championship game between Alabama and Florida.

"Officiating has been a great balance in my life," said Redding, who began officiating in the early ’70s when he was on the faculty at North Texas.

Redding, a native of Georgetown, Ky., played football in high school but not in college at Georgia Tech where he earned his bachelor’s degree. He said he hopes to bring the same no-nonsense approach to the job that his predecessor, Bobby Gaston, possessed for 50 years in the league, first as an official and then as a supervisor since ’88.

SEC basketball coaches already are confident that officiating will improve under Boudreaux, 48, a native of Houston who graduated in ’82 with a bachelor of science in education from Louisiana-Lafayette.

He served as interim supervisor last season after the league fired John Guthrie in December shortly after a couple of SEC referees were alleged by the Securities and Exchange Commission to be involved in a fraudulent investment scheme.