Nov. 21, 2007

The South Carolina Gamecock football team (6-5) spent two hours on the Bluff Road practice fields Wednesday afternoon as they continued their preparations for the annual Palmetto State battle against the nationally-ranked Clemson Tigers (8-3). Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Williams-Brice Stadium on Saturday. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN2 with Gary Thorne providing the play-by-play, Bob Davie handling the color commentary and Stacey Dales working the sidelines.

“I said something in the press conference Tuesday that I didn’t say correctly,” said Head Coach Steve Spurrier following the practice session. “I meant to say that our effort level is what stinks. I said our attitude stinks, but the attitude of our guys is pretty good. The overall attitude of our team is good. We don’t have problems with our guys. Our effort level needs to improve. There’s no question about that. I said it wrong and I told our team that I was mistaken. Our attitude is ok – our effort level needs to get better. The effort level today was pretty good. Guys were flying around, had good spirits. I like the way they were enjoying practice and having a good attitude.”

Coach Spurrier indicated that there would be a couple of new starters on defense this week. “Addison Williams is one of the starters at corner, along with Stoney Woodson,” said Coach Spurrier. “Darian (Stewart) and E Cook are starting at safety. Up front, Kenrick Ellis is going to get a start at one of the tackles replacing Marque Hall. Kenrick gets off blocks and plays with more effort in there. That’s why he’s getting the start.”

On the significance of the game: “We’ve got a bowl game, seven wins… we’ve got a lot on the line. We’ve got everything to play for. I assure you in the future when we get six wins we’re going to do cartwheels down in Five Points. We may have gotten a little overconfident that six was easy to get to. But we’ve had our chances. We haven’t played very well but we’re going to try to play our best one of the year. We’re going to need to to have a chance against Clemson. We talk about trying to play better.”

The Gamecocks will work out on Thursday morning before enjoying a Thanksgiving team meal in The Zone.