Oct. 5, 2005

The South Carolina football squad continued preparations for Saturday’s 1 p.m. Southeastern Conference battle with Kentucky with a two-hour practice Wednesday afternoon. Following the practice session, head coach Steve Spurrier addressed the media:

“In case of an emergency we’re getting (Syvelle Newton) ready a little bit (at quarterback).

“I think (quarterback Blake Mitchell) is going to be able to go. If he gets hit around the ankle, he’ll come limping off and we’ll put in either Antonio (Heffner) or Syvelle (Newton). That’s our two choices right now.

“(Blake) is still gimpy, but he is not much of a runner anyway, so hopefully he won’t have to move around too much. He’ll need to get rid of it quickly. He’s been pretty good the last two days. We’re not running him. We know we have to throw the ball. We have to mix it up though. We’re not good enough to throw it every down. Right now he is probably going to be able to go.

“(Offensive guard) Web (Brown) has a muscle spasm in the back. He was all twisted up. He got it in pre-game warm-ups last week. It takes a week or two to go away. There’s a good chance he will be out. I think Freddy Saint-Preux is getting his second chance. Jamon Meredith will be over at right tackle. We’ll see how they do.

“I think we practiced ok (this week). I feel like we’ll play our best one, whatever that means. I usually feel that way, but hopefully our guys were embarrassed enough by our performance the last time out that we’ll play hard this Saturday.”