Coach Spurrier Weekly Press Conference – August 27, 2006

Aug. 27, 2006

Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier met with the media on Sunday afternoon for his weekly press conference as the Gamecocks begin the 2006 season this Thursday at Mississippi State. Kickoff is set for 8:02 pm ET with the game televised on ESPN.

(Opening statement)
“We are getting closer to game time. Thursday night, hopefully our team will be ready to play as well as we possibly can. We have had a lot of practices; it is a little different than in the old, at the end of three weeks we used to play; now they give you more time. It’s probably best this way. I haven’t heard of any heat strokes all over the country, so I think the NCAA has some rules in place that help the players not get to deep down in two-a-days. We are in pretty good health. A little bumps and bruises, ankle twists, but we should be close to 100 percent Thursday night for the ballgame. We are looking forward to see what kind of team we have. Like all of you know, we are playing a lot of new players, players that haven’t played much before. We think they are good players and we are going to find out how good or how much work we need to do when the game is over Thursday night. We’ll see what happens out there.”

(On younger players first game)
“I’ve been doing this awhile, until you see your players who haven’t played before in a real game, it is a little bit of an unknown. I think they will make a strong account for themselves, handle themselves. Until we go do it, it is `How are we going to do?’ Gotta go play some time, hopefully our guys are ready to play well.”

(On linebackers)
“Rodney Paulk has been impressive. He flies around. He is a light linebacker, only about 205, so if we can keep those big guys off of him, he can go tackle people. He is slated to play a lot. Marvin Sapp who didn’t play much last year is slated. The Brinkley brothers (are two more); we haven’t seen them in live action. There are so many players that we haven’t seen yet, but we think they will play well.”

(On defensive line)
“We are concerned about everybody. Marquee Hall has had an excellent preseason. Hopefully we can get some good play out of Stanley Doughty. Nate Pepper has played well in there, Joel Reaves has been solid. Our defensive ends are not real big but they have been active.”

(On playing time for running backs Mike Davis and Cory Boyd)
“They will both play and hopefully get to play a whole lot. Occasionally we have them in there at the same time, it will work its way out. If our offense is pretty good then we will be on the field a lot longer then we were last year and they will get to play a lot more. How much they play will depend on how much the offense can stay on the field and how quickly our defense can get the team out.”

(On Syvelle Newton)
“We will try to use him whatever way we need to try to win a game. If we are struggling with a normal quarterback dropping back and throwing, then we may have to try Syvelle in there. Mississippi State has a couple of quarterbacks that are slated to play, one is sort of a passer and the other one can run and pass very well. We have to be ready for both types of quarterbacks and hopefully our opponents will have to spend some time on two different styles of quarterback. He’s very close to 100 percent as far as running with the ball in his hands; he looks very much like he did last year.”

(On Blake Mitchell)
“I think Blake is going to play better but we have to go play the game and see how he does. At times, he is throwing the ball much better than last year, his timing much improved, it’s another year and he is more knowledgeable of the game. We are looking forward to him having a big year for us. Hopefully it will start happening on Thursday night. He played pretty well last year. Obviously, for that team to win seven and beat some of the teams we did, some good things happened for us. Hopefully we can make more good things happen this year. I think he is much more knowledgeable and maybe we got some better athletes or our receiving corps is a little better, although it is the same guys with Sidney (Rice) and Kenny (McKinley), but I think they are much improved. With Cory (Boyd) back there, it gives us another running back. The offensive line I think will play as well as last year. So, wait and see.”

(On Mississippi State)
“They have a big, strong defensive line, very active, they come off the ball. Their defense was a little better than ours last year, as far as the rankings go. They are a physical team, play hard, a big, strong bunch of guys. I know they didn’t win a bunch last year, but they won their last game so they are on a one-game winning streak and we are on a two-game losing streak right now. I think each year every team has their own personality, so we will just have to wait and see how their’s is and how ours is on Thursday night.”

(On the receiving corps)
“Moe (Brown) ran around a little bit yesterday. Hopefully he can do more today. O.J. Murdock has done some pretty good things. Mike West is still nursing his hamstring a little bit, he is not 100 percent full-speed, and I’m not sure how much he will be in there right now. Syvelle can play some wide receiver and of course Sidney and Kenny are ready. Again it depends on how much we are out there and how much they run around.”

(On the team’s commitment level)
“The players are doing very well as far as being on time, going to all the meals and so forth. We have had very few misses of anything right now. The commitment level has been fine. I think our players really want to play and play well. Again, it is a bunch of first and second-year guys and a few older players also, but we are anxious to see what happens and see how we match up against Mississippi State.”

(On newcomers)
“Well obviously in preseason, as you guys know, our quarterback Chris Smelley has statistically been the best. Now, a lot of times he was in there with the third offense against the third defense and so forth. Statistically he has thrown more completions, more yards, and more touchdowns. O.J. Murdock has done some good things catching the ball; the backs have run pretty well. Defensively, Rodney Paulk has made some tackles; Emmanuel Cook is going to be a starter on defense, another true freshman. Eric Norwood, defensive end, has been an active player. Captain Munnerlyn, defensive back, is slated to play a whole bunch. Those players have caught our eye as have some players who played a bit last year.”

(On special teams)
“Ryan Succop is our kicker. We are going to try to play better special teams, try to make something happen. Fred Chatham has been our special teams coach, and his teams at Duke have been ranked very well. They ran two kickoffs back against FSU last year. Supposedly after the game, one of the media boys asked Bobby Bowden, `How in the world did you let (Duke) run two kickoffs back at you?’ He said, `Well they get a lot more practice at it than most people.’ So, anyway, hopefully we can run some back. We have some fast guys and made a pretty good effort to work on it in the preseason and we will continue to do that.”

(On Mississippi State’s defense)
“They are a little bit of man-to-man team, little bit of a zone, I don’t know how they will come after us. Most teams generally follow their tendencies but at times they will put in some new defensive coverages, blitzes and so forth. We are trying to expect a little bit of everything and hopefully be ready for them.”

( On Chris Smelley’s preparations)
“He’s certainly well-prepared like Blake was probably going into the season last year. Chris has been a quarterback since about the seventh grade. He’s played that position a whole lot and they got in the shotgun and threw it about every down too. He’s been a passing quarterback. He’s unknown but we think he will play well when his time comes. Usually a quarterback is about as good as their pass protection and their receivers getting open. He’s depending on those guys up front and the receivers are dependent also. It all starts up front. You can’t just blame the quarterback if it goes bad and the offensive is struggling. Now if he’s got guys open and he can’t hit them and he’s got time, then we better make some changes. It all goes together as we all know.”

(On offensive formations)
“Right now Lanard Stafford has been a good fullback. I tell you, that kid has come a long way from a little walk-on defensive lineman a couple years ago. We feel comfortable with him in there and we feel good with Cory (Boyd) and Mike (Davis) in there at times. So much three wides, four wides, I don’t know. We are actually in a pretty good situation with Jared Cook playing at tight end, so he can line up in there in tight or split him out.”

(On his gut feeling)
“My gut feeling is we don’t know. We don’t really know right now. At times we can look very impressive; we certainly have thrown the ball much better this preseason than last year at this time. I think everybody is picking us at fourth in the East, which they look at returning players, this that and the other, and that’s probably where we should be. I think we would be doing the wrong things to try and put too great of expectations on freshmen and sophomores that are basically going to be doing most of the playing this year. We are approaching the season with similar goals compared to last year. We should win more than we lose and go from there and who knows where that will take us. My gut feeling is that we are building a team to compete at the top. We are building it. We are just going to try to compete our hearts out and try to learn, improve as the season goes and we will see where we are.”