Nov. 12, 2005
Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery
USC 30, Florida 22 November 12, 2005
USC coach Steve Spurrier postgame quotes
The headline in the Florida paper should read, “Guess who’s pulling for Auburn now.”
We got some extremely good breaks. Every long pass the other team makes goes off their fingertips. Tucker’s interception.
I’m just proud of the guys, proud of the way they played. It was like all the other (wins) except we were ahead at halftime.
I knew it would be a tough second half. Florida was tough running the ball. They just about ran out the clock in the fourth quarter, helped us out.
One of our goals was to beat one of the big three, and we’ve beaten two of the three. To beat these guys for the first time is neat.
I love the Gators, I always will. But I am with South Carolina now.
I told you we had a lot of history we could set here. I didn’t think we would set this much this year.
It was not a lot of coaching today. Just a lot of good running, blocking and tackling.
Sidney’s catch was a huge play. It got us down to the one after they had cut it to one point. That’s just the way it’s been going for the Gamecocks.
It’s more fun (winning) when your team is not a dominating team. It’s neat the way our guys are winning. We are defying logic. We are not good running the ball and we are not good stopping the run. But the defense has kept guys to kicking field goals.
We tried to low key it, tried not to overhype it. We are not going to overhype next week. I hope we can play batter than today.
They didn’t want to man up on Sidney. They played a lot of zone.
Mike had some good solid runs.
Florida is good at knocking the ball out, and we played with no fumbles. We did a good job of taking care of the ball.
They played a lot of two-deep stuff with six or seven on the line of scrimmage, so we felt our best chance was to run and not throw.
I left (Florida) to go somewhere else. I didn’t leave to come here. Three years later, this was the best place for me. I hope they will see it that way. Twelve years is enough.
We gave up some rushing yards, but our guys toughened up.
We got fortunate on that last call. Who knows what Leak could have done in the last minute.
I’m not worried about any bowls. We’re just going to play Clemson. They are a very good team.
We love playing here. We are undefeated in garnet jerseys, so we will be wearing garnet jerseys next week.
University of Florida Head Coach Urban Meyer
On the game:
“I think the one drive where we had second down-and-one and we had two back-to-back penalties it knocked us out because we were moving the ball fairly well. I think it’s the first time all year we have not created a turnover and we had one. Obviously that’s a credit to them to take care of the football like that.”
On Sidney Rice:
“We think he’s an excellent player. He still had his catches but like other teams did, Arkansas did a decent job putting two guys on him. We zoned off against him and also had some bracket coverage for him.”
On South Carolina rushing:
“We had a lot of time spent in coverage because we felt like they were going to come out and throw the ball all over the place, but I think they only threw it 17 times, which was surprising.”
On kicking game:
“Thirty-two (yard) punt. He just didn’t hit the ball very well. He wasn’t pressured. He just didn’t hit the ball very well.”
On turning point:
“I think there were a lot of turning points in the game. I still think that second down-and-one, we probably were going to take a shot right there, but it was second down-and-one and we had a motion penalty and then a holding penalty back-to-back that put us at second-and-16.”
On the Florida program:
“In my mind it’s a young program. It’s a program going through a lot of changes, a lot of growth and a few speed bumps along the way. You’re playing for a championship in November, you are in the conference, you got a rival game in two weeks and will play in a bowl game. So we have a lot to play for, a lot of seniors who have invested a lot in this program, been through a lot in the last several years. So that’s what I just told the team. You have to regroup and go.”
On Florida passing game:
“We just have to execute those and I think a championship team executes those and hits them…Overall I think Chris Leak played fairly well. Chris Leak battled and made some great plays.”
At halftime:
“When I checked out the stats, there’s a misunderstanding there. You just had a vision that they were moving the ball up and down the field on us, and that wasn’t the case at it all…”
On week’s attention on Spurrier:
“I don’t believe it was difficult at all.”
South Carolina Player Quotes vs. Florida
Josh Brown, Punter “It is the biggest win since I’ve been here. It’s just great to be able to look back in a few years with my teammates and know we won we beat Tennessee and Florida and we are going to a bowl game – that’s history. You can look back on it later in life and have those great memories.
(Hero today): “Everything has it’s own role and that just factored into the game. The ball just rolled in our favor like it has the past 3-4 games we’ve played. We are going to enjoy this one until Monday and then it’s time to work.
(Blocked extra point): “Somebody just leaked through right at the front and the ball just bounced to the right guy. We tried to track him down but we couldn’t really get to him.”
Chris Tucker, Defense (on his interception and return): “Dustin (Lindsay) tipped the ball and it fell right into my hands. I thought I would just go and see how far I could get with it. I just kept running because I knew that Ko Simpson and Lance Laury were in front blocking for me. I then cut back to the left to try to score, but then I ran out of breath. (on practicing tips): We practice that in practice, but as far as running that far – I wasn’t really prepared to run that.
“After we started playing a month ago we started getting more confident with each game. We beat Tennessee and that was a big win. But beating both in the same year – that’s a really big win. Coach Spurrier makes us feel more confident. We play all four quarters because we believe.
(Clemson): “We are going to be ready.”
Orus Lambert, Defense “This win feels great. It’s a blessing because the guys fought it out and wanted it. We jumped on them and then they came back a little bit but we kept fighting and we won. We got to practice and work hard. We have a group of players and a group of seniors that said they wanted to turn this thing around and we are doing it. Chris Leak is a great quarterback. We got pressure on him and disrupted things. We got to him.”
NaShan Goddard, Offense “We did pretty good today. We did some better things. We played hard, we played tough and we stuck it out. The running backs made some good plays out there and made us look pretty good. This is by far the biggest win of our careers here. I have never beaten either Tennessee or Florida. This win is up there with the Tennessee game, but this might be even bigger because we have their old coach (Coach Spurrier). This is very very big for us. We are having a dream season and we just want to keep it going.
“Coach tried to keep it all the same this week so it wasn’t a distraction. We practiced the same way, we met the same way – he wanted it to be like any other game. He tried not to make it anything different. That’s what we will continue to do.
(Next week): “We haven’t thought about it all yet. Right now we are going to celebrate this win and we are going to get ready for Clemson next week on Monday night.”
Blake Mitchell, Offense “I knew coming in today we could win this game if we came out and played. I knew we had a chance, but we had to keep it close. If things fell our way, we thought we could get the win. Not many quarterbacks that played here can say they beat Florida and Tennessee. That’s a good start to things.
(what’s going right with the offense): “Not making stupid plays, not making stupid penalties. Moving the ball and making first downs.
“This win is part of the foundation of what we are building on. In the future we are going to have some pretty decent teams. We continue to work hard and believe in ourselves and believe we can do it. We knew if we had some close games we could pull it out and we have.”
Tyrone Nix, Co-Defense Coordinator “The one thing that has consistently shown up is that the kids make some great plays and they believe in each other. We still have a lot of work to do. We still have to work on fundamentals and we still have to continue to work on tackling. Those are the things that are probably the biggest disappointment, but we won the game again and we can go to the practice field and get better. (big win?): We try to treat every game like it’s the biggest game of our life so if I am going to stay true to what we stress to the players and what we teach I would say yes, but it’s a big win. It’s a big win, it’s a good win.”
Sidney Rice, Offense “Coach Spurrier talked about how this was the first time we have beaten Florida since 1939. When I came here I wanted to be somewhere where I could help a team out.
Ko Simpson, Defense “We knew we could get them. We knew we were at the point where we could get them, we just had to keep fighting. We knew as a team we had to continue to work together and make plays. After the Tennessee game we have a lot of momentum on our backs and it’s helped. Hopefully we will come out with a big one this next week.”
Daccus Turman, Offense “We really wanted to win this game for Coach Spurrier. It was one of the games we had as a goal at the beginning of the season. We beat Florida, but I think all the guys came out this week and worked hard. We knew we weren’t going to be denied. We wanted to win.
John Thompson, Co-Defensive Coordinator “This win is special for everybody. This is Florida and it’s a big deal. All week long Coach (Spurrier) treated it like any other game and we didn’t get out of our routine and didn’t let anything distract us. His excitement level was up a bit – I think all of ours was. Dave Wommack and I were just talking in the lockerroom – we have been around a long time. We have beat every SEC team now because neither of us had beaten Florida before.”
Florida vs. South Carolina 11/12/05
Florida Player Quotes
Chris Leak
On the loss: “It was just a big time game. You have to give South Carolina credit. They played a great game and they came up with a big win.”
On the hype facing Spurrier: “We just concentrated on what we had to do. As a team, we just had to go out there and play hard.”
Post-game feeling of the locker room: “We’re disappointed, especially when you are playing a big SEC game such as this. We’re going to come back after the bye week and get guys healthy. We’re going to try to improve on everything.”
On the turnovers: “You know, you just can’t make those mistakes in big time games like this. Those can really set you back and take you off schedule.”
Reaction after the loss compared to the loss against LSU: “It’s the same disappointment. When you play in these big time games, it’s always a disappointment to come out of it with a loss.”
On the team’s penalties: “We just can’t have those. It’s one of the things that we need to improve on because they can really take you off schedule. We’ve got to be more disciplined on things and try to stay on schedule and stay in those second and short situations. We have to take advantage of all of our opportunities.”
Jarvis Moss:
On the loss: “We knew it was going to be a tough environment. We were a well coached team coming into the game and they just hung in there. They made plays and we didn’t. They came out with the win.”
On the penalty on the punt block: “There isn’t really much we can do about the referees. Maybe South Carolina thought the call was right and we thought it was wrong, but we can’t control the referees. Some calls didn’t go our way. We’ve got to live with it.”
On the total penalties in the game: “Penalties are a part of the game. We just had to bounce back and make plays regardless of what we did prior to that. We just didn’t do that today.”
On the reaction of the loss in the locker room: “We felt like we played hard. Everyone played their hearts out. Everyone tried and gave all their effort so that is really all that we can ask for. Like I said, they made some plays today and we didn’t.”
About going against Coach Spurrier: “We tried to remain focused on South Carolina and prepare as well as we could. I felt like we prepared well but South Carolina just came out to win.”
Regrouping for the next game: “That’s not an issue. Coach Meyer is going to get us ready and we are going to keep working hard and just try to finish up the season strong.”
