Dec. 18, 2006
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier met with the media on Monday afternoon as the Gamecocks continue preparations for Houston in the 2006 Liberty Bowl.
Opening Statement
“I haven’t seen all of you in this environment since the Clemson game. I want to make it pretty clear that we feel very fortunate when it all played out, Ryan Succop made the field goal and their kicker missed. That made us the winner. A lot of my buddies were saying that we really got’em and clobbered them, and I said, `Yeah Our guy made the field goal and their guy missed.’ So we’re not bragging. We are fortunate and bad luck did not follow us all year. We had some games that we had a chance to win, didn’t do it, but it worked out there in the end. Someone asked me if we had the chance – which one of the field goals we would have needed to make, the one at Florida or the one at Clemson. Without question, the one at Clemson was most important because it’s our in-state rival, end of the year and so forth. It ended up being more important because we weren’t in contention for the SEC Eastern Division. If that is the case, than hopefully that will be important in years to come.”
“Getting on to the University of Houston, they have had a wonderful season. They were Conference USA champions and they beat Southern Miss 34-20 in the championship game in that league. They finished 10-3, their offense I think I read where they were about fifth in the nation. They make a lot of yards and their quarterback, Kevin Kolb, is one of the best, another senior quarterback. Our defensive guys are really going to be challenged. On defense for them, they are probably not quite on the level of some of the top SEC teams but they have a very good defense. They get a lot of turnovers, they are not afraid to make interceptions. If the ball is in the air, they act like the rule is that they can go intercept it. And those are the rules. We are trying to teach our guys that interceptions are perfectly permissible. We have not gotten our share this year. Hopefully, in the future, we will start getting our share of those balls that we have a chance to pick off and make a defensive score.”
On dealing with time off before the bowl game
“I don’t know if there are any secrets. I’m a believer that you can practice too long for a game. We are going to practice about two weeks, that’s about it and we’re going to get ready to play. I don’t know how Ohio State is going to do it; they have like 57 days or so. They have two months, so you need to ask Coach Tressel how he is keeping his guys busy. We practice two weeks, try to get the game plan in place, when we go to the site of the game than we just review it.”
On finishing the season with a bowl victory
“It would be very helpful to have an eight-win season and finish with three straight wins. That would be very helpful, we are going to try. I just want our guys to play well, play hard and play smart. Obviously last year’s game was disappointing. I thought we were certainly ready to play, came out and scored on the first three possessions and all of a sudden the game turned on us right at the end of the first half. We had turnovers on offense and we never stopped them on defense after that. It was disappointing but it’s history. I think this year, our guys have done a little bit better job finishing games. Obviously our last game, we came from 14 down to win a game in the second half. We’re trying to finish a game better than in years past.”
On Houston quarterback Kevin Kolb
“He can run and throw. He’s a player that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. We have to get some pressure on him, turn our ends loose. They have a lot of different plays. You guys will see some different plays that SEC teams don’t run. I was watching some tape the other day, we might try to use some of their plays against them.”
“They probably do a lot like Florida does, spread out and shotgun most the time. But they have different plays.”
On Syvelle Newton’s opportunities in the NFL
“I think Syvelle can play a lot of positions. We have him working a little quarterback, a little wide receiver and defensive back for this game. I really don’t know what his best position would be. He’s very good with the ball in his hands. He can make guys miss and he is a natural runner with it. I don’t know if he’s a receiver, running back or what in pro ball, probably receiver is most likely where he will end up.”
On Blake Mitchell
“We work on the same things as we always work on. Fundamentals, decisions, drops, all kinds of things. He has done better. He had some bad plays in that Clemson game. One of the interceptions, he sort of got hit while he was throwing. Another one, their guy just dropped one over the middle and he probably would have scored. We threw the middle route to Sidney and they were playing for it. Blake threw it right to the guy, he dropped it and we got away with it. It was a bad decision and he said that he didn’t see the guy. I said, well that’s not a good reason. You are supposed to look to see if it is open before you throw it in there. Clemson coaches had the right defense on that play. We hit it a couple times, but they had a guy sitting on it, fortunately he didn’t catch it or he could have scooted down the sidelines for a touchdown.”
“I think maybe just watching from the sideline a little bit helped them. Sometimes that helps quarterbacks. Watching them over the years, again, as all you know, I’m not opposed to putting them on the bench for a while when they are going bad. Usually they always come back. I was looking at my last SEC championship ball, we (Florida) beat Auburn 28-6, and I think Rex Grossman was the most valuable player of that game. He got benched twice that season. We put Jesse Palmer in after Rex got off to a bad start against South Carolina. Jesse finished that one out and also the Georgia game. I said, you need to come over and stand with me for a while. Now the next year, Rex was really good and he didn’t get benched. It seems to help some a bit when they do that.”
