DESTIN, Fla. -- Ole Miss football coach Ed Orgeron said he's still waiting to see if junior college transfer Brent Schaeffer, the Rebels' starting quarterback for 2006 season, has graduated from his California junior college.

Schaeffer, who started several games as a true freshman at Tennessee two years ago before being thrown off the team, played this past season at the College of the Sequoias. He set 11 school records there, throwing for 2,940 yards and 40 TDs, and running for 860 yards and 10 TDs.

"He has a couple of courses left to finish," Orgeron said. "We expect him to be at Ole Miss for the second semester of summer school.

"I feel good about Brent. He's followed the plan almost exactly as he planned." Orgeron said.

Since the NCAA doesn't allow coaches to coach players in the summer, Orgeron said Schaeffer will have minimal preparation when preseason practice opens in August.

"He has to make sure he's in shape and he's studying the playbook," Orgeron said. "But the biggest thing right now is to get him eligible."

Tighten Up: The NCAA football rules committee has passed rules designed to shorten the length of games, such as cutting halftime and starting the clock quicker on change of possessions.

"I hope we don't completely change the game, like starting the clock after incomplete passes or balls going out-of-bounds," South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier said. "To me, there's still a lot of strategy involved when you're ahead keep the clock going, and when you're behind you stop the clock.

"Gosh, we had the fewest number of offensive plays of any Division 1-A school last year that's in a BCS conference. So we're hurting for plays. We had a lot of short games. Our media boys were happy. They could write their stories and go out and drink beer."

Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville doesn't mind the game being shortened.

"Some coaches think that starting the clock as soon as the referee sets the ball down on a possession will cut 15 to 20 plays," Tuberville said. "All it's going to do is cause coaches to speed up their decision-making, to get the play on the field and go, instead of standing around on the sideline and using all that 25 seconds.

Tuberville said any rules changes aren't designed to draws the college game closer to what is played in the NFL.

"We want to do what's best for college," Tuberville said. "The pros have a different game than us. We did go to instant replay, but we felt that's what is best for college football. We think we have the best game."

Booked Up: There's no room at the inn for Memphis in the SEC men's basketball tournament.

Mark Womack, the SEC's executive associate commissioner, said that the tournament is booked through 2012. The tournament will be held in Atlanta three of those years in the Georgia Dome, but also in smaller arenas in Tampa, Nashville and New Orleans the other three years.

"When we opened bids a couple of years ago, we didn't hear from anyone in Memphis until after the deadline had passed," Womack said.

Memphis hosted the tournament twice in the 1990s at The Pyramid.