Aug. 29, 2005

With just three days before the season opener Thursday night against UCF, the South Carolina Gamecock football squad worked out for a little over two hours on the Bluff Road practice fields Monday afternoon. The session was like a typical “Wednesday” practice for the Gamecocks. Here are head coach Steve Spurrier’s comments following the practice:

“We’re about 72 or 73 hours away from finally playing. It was a decent practice. Nothing too exciting happened today. We got some good work in. The weather’s been very good the last few days – good and hot and no thunderstorms, so we’ve been in good shape.

“Usually you need to practice well to play well. We haven’t practiced extremely sharp, but we’ll play to our potential Thursday night.

“They don’t want Sidney (Rice) to play yet. They’re afraid if he gets hit on his finger again, it’s not healed enough to play. He’s very doubtful.

“(Blake Mitchell’s) got a chance to really play well. He’s got a lot of potential. He can make all the throws. He’s just got to get comfortable and have some good things happen and we have to pass block well. Hopefully he can stay away from getting hit by blitzers and stay out of trouble. We’ll try to help him as much as we can.”

INJURY REPORT: O.J. Murdock remained out due to an illness. Jonathan Hannah was sidelined with a left ankle injury. Dakota Walker was on crutches after having an infection in his left knee. Eric Stroman (left elbow), Michael Flint (right hand), Sidney Rice (left little finger) and Jared Cook (foot) also were in yellow jerseys on Monday.