Sept. 7, 2005

The South Carolina Gamecocks continued preparations for their nationally-televised game at Georgia by going through a two hour practice on Wednesday afternoon. The Gamecocks will travel to Athens on Friday for Saturday’s 5:40 p.m. ET kick against the No. 9 Bulldogs in a game that will be televised by ESPN.

Following Wednesday’s practice, USC head coach Steve Spurrier addressed the media:

On his practice schedule: “Tuesday and Wednesdays are your bigger practices. Thursdays are a little lighter. We may do a little more on Thursdays than some teams, but not a lot more.”

On having the extra time to prepare: “I never thought it was that big of a deal. Usually when you have extra time you goof off. I’ve always preferred the normal week.”

On working with quarterback Blake Mitchell: “We’re trying to get Blake quicker, quicker, quicker. He needs to get rid of the ball quicker. His throwing motion needs to be quicker. His decision-making needs to be quicker. Other than that he’s ready.”

On what he expects from the Georgia defense: “I don’t know what to expect. We hope to guess and have a decent play on most of the time. As loud as it is, it will be hard to audible and be hard to no-huddle. We’ll try to have a good play on hopefully.”

“I hope we can run better than the last game. I think our running backs averaged about one yard a carry so I hope we can do better than that.”

On O.J. Murdock: “O.J. is probably not in our top six receivers right now. If we have a chance to hold him out, we’ll certainly want to do that, as with many of our other freshman. He’s very healthy.”