April 5, 2005

The USC football team practiced Tuesday afternoon under blue skies on the USC practice fields and at Williams-Brice Stadium. The team will scrimmage on Wednes., April 6 at 4:30 pm in Williams-Brice Stadium. The scrimmage is open to the public.

Coach Spurrier commented on the practice afterwards:

“Today we played with no rush on the quarterback. We designed practice today to see if the quarterbacks could get open. Blake Mitchell did well. He threw a few nice passes. The quarterbacks are doing what we ask them to do. We played a little no huddle today and we will see how it goes. Blake was the best today. If we had to play tomorrow he would start – he came into today as the No. 3 quarterback and leaves No. 1 today. He has pretty good mechanics. He can make all the throws, he just has to make himself. He will have receivers here to throw to all summer and we have a room for him to watch tape.

“Tomorrow we will turn them loose again. The scrimmage will be very similar to Saturday’s scrimmage, but we’ll get 60-70 plays in tomorrow. Sidney Rice has been very impressive. The ball sticks in his hands. Kris Clark has a quick step and so does Travis Lee (injured) when we get him back. Syvelle Newton is coming around.

“We are starting from scratch this spring. This is not our fall team right now, this is our spring team. We have to play games first to decide where we’ll be, but we are working on building our battleship right now. The thing we want to accomplish the most right now is to find out which players can play like the coaches have coached them to play. It’s amazing how players get nervous when they walk into the big ballpark. That’s why we like to hold scrimmages over here (Williams-Brice Stadium).

Updated Injury Report:

OG Eric Stroman: foot (day to day), DL Charles Silas: left ankle (day to day); WR Noah Whiteside: left wrist (day to day): RB Cory Boyd: left hamstring (day-to-day), DL Matt Raysor: right ankle (day-to-day), WR Travis Lee: neck strain (out). WR Michael Flint (shoulder) and CB Fred Bennett (shoulder) are limited. OL William Brown (low back strain) and OL John Paul Gillis (back surgery) are out.