Nov. 16, 2003

Columbia, S.C. – Notes and quotes from USC Head Coach Lou Holtz’s Media Teleconference: “Offensively, our plan was to run it and be productive and try to control the game. I thought in the first quarter, we played very well. Then, we lost John Strickland and Travelle Wharton with ankle injuries and we were down to our third center, Chris White. Defensively, we had too many people in the wrong place too many times. When we had to call a timeout because we only had 10 men on the field, one of our defensive tackles, Freddy Saint-Preux, had gotten hurt but didn’t tell anybody and we were caught with the wrong personnel. The other two timeouts we had to take because our center, who is just a freshman, was slow in making the line calls. Losing those timeouts like that really hurt us … We didn’t make enough big plays on offense, both in the running game and passing game. Florida has a very good team and I was impressed with how hard they played. They were determined because the conference championship is still within their grasp … (On the fake punt) “You can’t be afraid to lose. The logic is that you don’t run a fake on your own 30; you do it on their 30 … We really hadn’t stopped them since the first quarter. They had fumbled once going in and driven the ball 90 and 80 yards on two other occasions. I thought the momentum had swung their way. I honestly thought the thing would work. We were trying to swing the momentum back our way. It didn’t work out. Our defense bailed us out and held them to a field goal. I told the team that we would run a fake punt sometime during the game. Sure, you second guess your decision. They had been rushing in trying to block the punt the entire day and changed their scheme on that play … It seems like every team we play comes in on a roll and that will be no different this week. Clemson is playing extremely well. It breaks your heart to be so close, yet so far. I want to bounce back this week … Our pass coverage was pretty good against Florida, but our pass rush was inconsistent. We allowed (Chris) Leak to have too much success scrambling with the ball … Taqiy (Muhammad) did some pretty good things for us at safety. He gave us some quickness there.”

Injury update: OT Travelle Wharton (left ankle sprain); C John Strickland (left ankle sprain); S Taqiy Muhammad (elbow bruise); DT Freddy Saint-Preux (low back bruise) … TB Demetris Summers, who missed the Florida game while recovering from a concussion, is expected to return to practice Monday evening and be available for this week’s game against Clemson.

This week: USC and Clemson will meet for the 101st time this Saturday. Kick off at Williams-Brice Stadium is 7 p.m. with ESPN2 televising nationally.