Sept. 26, 2005

The South Carolina versus Kentucky football game, set for Saturday, October 8, will kickoff at 1 p.m., it was announced today. The game will be televised throughout the state of South Carolina on a pay-per-view basis. Check with your local cable company for more information.

The football squad began preparations for Saturday’s 7 p.m. contest at Auburn. That contest will be televised nationally on ESPN2. Following the 90-minute workout, head coach Steve Spurrier addressed the media:

“We had a pretty good practice tonight I think – looking forward to playing Auburn, a team that was 13-0 last year. I think before the season Coach Tuberville said they had as good or better talent this year. He may be right. So it’s another big, strong SEC team and we’ll see how we match up with them.

“Antonio (Heffner) looked fine tonight. We’re getting him ready to play. I don’t think Blake (Mitchell) is going to be back. In fact, he ought to go ahead and not try too hard because this is a fast, mobile defense and we probably ought to let Antonio go play anyway and see what happens. The way our pass protection is right now, I don’t know if Blake could last anyway.

On the game plan with Heffner versus Mitchell: “It will change tremendously. It will be a completely different game plan. We’ll have some new ball plays for these guys.

“We’re not very good at both (running the ball or stopping the run). We know that. We’ll just keep trying and doing the best we can. They both go together. We’ve not been very good on third down and defensively we can’t stop anybody very well. We’ll try to turn it around if we can.

“We’ll have different offensive linemen starting this week. Seems like we have a new one about every week. That’s just where we are. Jamon Meredith may be the new candidate to start. If we can find somebody to pass block just a lick, he could be a starter here. We’re struggling to keep guys off the quarterback, but we’ll keep working at it. They have more potential than what we’re getting out of them. We’ll see who has the best week of practice.”