Oct. 20, 2002

Columbia, SC –

* Update on South Carolina’s injury situation coming out of last Saturday’s game at LSU and the injured player’s status for Monday’s practice: OT Jeff Barnes, wrist sprain (out); TB/WR Ryan Brewer, ankle sprain (out); S Rashad Faison, ankle sprain (limited); WR Andrea Gause, knee sprain (out); LB Ricardo Hurley, upper leg tendon strain (conditioning); DE Dennis Quinn, ankle sprain (limited); OT Watts Sanderson, ankle sprain (limited). Brewer will have his left ankle immobilized this week. There was a good bit of swelling in his ankle on Sunday. It is a high ankle sprain and while it is the same ankle, it is not the same type of injury he had which required surgery this past spring. Center C.J. Frye, who had knee surgery three weeks ago, is expected to return to practice in full capacity on Monday.

* South Carolina has an open date this Saturday. The Gamecocks conditioned on Sunday, then they watched and graded the film. The team will practice Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.

* On Sunday, offensive coordinator Skip Holtz said that while the team did some good things in the first half of the LSU game, they weren’t able to sustain anything positive and slow down LSU’s momentum in the second half. “We were fairly confident going into the halftime break,” said Skip. “We were going to catch our breath, make some adjustments, and hopefully come out in the second half and continue to play the way we had in the first half. I didn’t sense that our players were in awe of LSU. This team has a blue collar attitude for the most part and I didn’t sense anything different in the locker room at halftime than I normally do.”

* On Corey Jenkins’ second interception of the third quarter, which LSU returned for a touchdown: “They blitzed the linebacker and the tackle was trying to block out the corner and actually blocked him into the flight of the ball,” said Skip. “That play kind of broke our backs.”

* Skip said the team would use the open date week to concentrate on fundamentals and execution. “We’ll game plan for Tennessee as a staff, but we won’t work a whole lot on Tennessee on the field as far as scout teams go,”said Skip. “Primarily, we want to work on becoming more fundamentally sound, take a look at some of the younger players and get some of our bumps and bruises healed up.”

* Skip Holtz noted that while quarterback Corey Jenkins continues to progress, by no means has he become the finished product. “Corey did some good things against LSU,” said Skip. “He is improving and he’s throwing the ball better. Mentally, he still needs to continue to improve his reads and concentration on the coverages.”

* Skip also said improvement must be made in the kickoff return area. “We made some poor decisions in our kickoff return against LSU,” said Skip. “We really need to focus on that during the open date. Troy Williamson and Matthew Thomas are the most attractive players we can put back there because they have the speed and athleticism to take it 100 yards and score. We’ll take a look at several different options there, because we are not performing well in that area at all right now.”

* South Carolina plays host to #15 Tennessee Nov. 2. Kickoff time will be finalized on Monday afternoon.