Aug. 21, 2009

The University of South Carolina football team worked out for about two hours again on a hot Friday afternoon at the Bluff Road practice fields. The big news of the day was the departure of junior wide receiver Joe Hills.

“Joe Hills is no longer a member of our team,” said head coach Steve Spurrier following the workout. “It’s as simple as that.”

Hills caught 11 passes last season as a sophomore. He was moved to safety on Thursday but did not attend Friday’s practice.

The Gamecocks will scrimmage on Saturday beginning at 11 a.m. at Williams-Brice Stadium. The scrimmage is closed to the public. The media is invited to attend, but is asked to follow the same rules that have applied for the last two scrimmages (ie. no video, no play-by-play accounts (either live or delayed), no laptops computers, twitters, facebook accounts, etc.). Please see Steve Fink at the practice if you have any questions about those rules.

“Our goals tomorrow are to take care of the ball and try to execute,” continued Coach Spurrier. “Our older players will not scrimmage much at all. It will be mostly the younger guys. That means all freshmen, sophomores and a few juniors. (Stephen) Garcia is a young guy – a very young guy. He and Reid (McCollum) will take most of the snaps. Our quarterbacks need to play a lot. They haven’t played much at all.”