Sept. 23, 2014

South Carolina Head Coach Steve Spurrier
Opening Statement
“Missouri, that was a memorable game we had out there. We had our first overtime win in school history. Connor Shaw had a big third quarter, and especially fourth quarter and overtime, and Elliott Fry made all of his field goal attempts at the end and our defense played very well, forcing punts and did a good job. Big win for us. We were on the verge of getting out of the top 25 if we lose that one, but somehow or another after that victory, we won the rest of them. Missouri had an excellent team as we all know, they went to win the East, finish in the top five and beat Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl.

“They had a game last week that we almost had and they got upset by Indiana. Sometimes you don’t play well and the other team plays very well, and you can get beat. We avoided our upset with some good play here and there by Pharoh Cooper and Dylan [Thompson] and the offense and (it) worked out for us or else we’d be right where they were as far as being upset.

“They’re a well-coached team. Coach Pinkel does a super job, his assistants, his staff. They’re fast, they’re quick and they play hard so it should be a heckuva game. Hopefully we can get our guys playing at a higher level. We have a lot of guys that played extremely well and some that don’t play well. We, as coaches, we need to get them up to speed. We still believe that we can have a good team this year. We’re 3-1 and we’ve won some close ones and we’ve played some good teams. We didn’t think Vandy would be that good, but they played their hearts out. (I) thought they outplayed us and outhustled us in a lot of areas, but fortunately we had enough players that made some plays and somehow or another we got 48 points and fortunately it was good enough as the game went on

“Anyway, GameDay is here. ESPN guys, Lee Corso, [Kirk] Herbstreit, [Chris] Fowler so it’ll be wonderful for our university, our state, our city and hopefully our team will play our best game of the year here Saturday night. It should be a loud one here at Williams-Brice Stadium. We’re still in the hunt for whatever we’re in the hunt for, but obviously we need to concern ourselves with playing the game at a lot better level than we’ve been playing and we’ll find out if we can do it Saturday night.”

On if Pharoh Cooper’s role will continue to expand on offense
“He’s had the same role, we just got him a lot more passes this week. He’s been in the shotgun, wildcat, whatever you want to call it. He’s obviously pretty good back there, we’d be a fool not to keep him back there several times every game. He’s was a little sore after the game. I tell you that a couple of those catches that he made were sensational with guys hitting him with the ball in the air, twice. He’s a good player and a wonderful young man. I asked him yesterday, `We’re not using you too much are we,’ and he said, `Coach, I’ll be ready.’ He obviously when he gets his hands on it is a very good player and we need to find ways where he’s running with it.”

On getting his 80th win at South Carolina
“That is right. We’re 80-40 so after this week we won’t be 80-40 again. That is interesting that we’ve managed to win two out of three. I would say as a coach, I’m more proud of that because to me, you’re judged as a coach of what your record is. They say, `What is your record?’ They don’t care if a team ran back two or three kickoffs but they say what is your record and our record for here, going 80-40 is pretty good. I take every game the same. I don’t get any particular bigger thrill out of beating Clemson or Vanderbilt, because you’ve got 12 times a year to play. If you’re fortunate, you’ll play the 13th and maybe even the 14th with the conference championship game, every game is so special. I wish we could get our players, a large majority of our players, to realize how special every game is and maybe our effort and concentration level would improve. Again, it was a good victory because of everything that happened last week and it would have been a shame to walk out of there with Vanderbilt beating us. They certainly had a chance to do it the way the game went along, but somehow or another, we had enough players with enough urgency and cared enough that we were able to come out a winner.”

On discounting not playing well if you win
“We’ve won a lot of games around here with not playing extremely well, but I don’t discount anything. As a coach, I think most all of us just ask our players to play the best they can and the score will take care of itself. That’s all we do. We just do that and tell them to play smart, play with a lot of effort and play like you love the game. Obviously, we as coaches aren’t doing that.”

On positive feelings from last year’s win at Missouri
“Everyone believes winning breeds more winning and obviously losing breeds more losing so we are in the habit of something happening to help us win a bunch of games that we easily could have lost. A few bad bounces and we probably could have lost every game this year. We haven’t dominated anybody, but it has worked out three out of four times.”

On the pass rush
“We’ve struggled a little bit on pass rush and we really don’t have quite the guys we used to around here with Jadeveon [Clowney], Chaz Sutton and Kelcey Quarles got a bunch of sacks last year, but our guys are hustling. They’re trying in there and we’re bringing some linebackers. We’re probably going to have to bring some linebackers to get pressure on the quarterback right now. A lot of those defensive linemen played pretty well last well. Gerald Dixon Jr. had one of his best games last week so those guys are hustling. We’re just sort of limited I guess as far as one of those natural rush guys that we used to have around here.”

On the receivers
“They’re doing okay. Obviously one or two balls here or there we could have hit or didn’t quite make the play, but they’ve had their moments. It’s a good bunch of guys. They’re doing okay. Could they do better? Yeah, certainly.”

On Maty Mauk
“We have to contain him. He’s a quarterback who can run all over the place. He played against us last year and he had some good plays early and then we contained him pretty much the second half, so hopefully we can contain him and keep him in the pocket. We obviously have to rush some linebackers and hopefully get some pass rush from the other guys.”

On if it’s better having a traditional drop-back passer
“It doesn’t matter how quarterbacks play. Connor [Shaw] as you all know would run out of there on some third downs and Dylan [Thompson] is more of a passer back there, but he made a bunch of third downs last week. No question about it, that it was important in that second half to not let Vandy stay on the field. We did that throwing the ball. Whatever it takes, it doesn’t matter to me. I’m the head coach. I get judged on wins and losses, not on passing yards or running yards. As the head coach you try to look out for the entire team and whatever helps us win more than we lose.”

On the schedule so far
“I think we all felt that Texas A&M, East Carolina and Georgia were three very good offensive team that we struggled a bit with, but we held in there in the last two to win with East Carolina and Georgia. We didn’t think Vandy was that good of an offensive team, but they made a bunch of yards on us so it was a little frustrating. We thought we would play better, but we didn’t, so now we have to come back and keep getting on our guys, keep coaching them up to play at a higher level.”