Oct. 31, 2005

The South Carolina football squad began preparations for Saturday’s 12:30 p.m. matchup at Arkansas with a 90-minute workout at the Bluff Road practice fields on Monday night. Following the practice, Gamecock Head Coach Steve Spurrier addressed the media:

“Beautiful night – warmed up a little bit. The guys had a pretty good practice tonight. Hopefully we’ll be ready to play our best against Arkansas. They are a lot better team than their record. It will be a tough one, but every game for us is going to be a tough one. Hopefully we can play our best game of the year – it will take that to beat them.

On Arkansas starting a freshman quarterback: “They must think he’s better than the one they got. They want to win some games and want to go ahead and play him and get him ready for next season. That’s not a bad idea.”

On the mood of the team after beating Tennessee: “I don’t know how good they felt after watching the tape and saw all the mistakes and errors and how fortunate we were to come out on top. I think our guys realize we were extremely fortunate and we need to play a lot better than we played up there. Good things happened and we won the game, but we’re not going to depend on all those good breaks to happen every game for us.”

“We let Antonio (Heffner) play a little wide out tonight. He’s too good of an athlete to just be watching the game, so there’s a chance he may play some wide out this week. He could always play quarterback like Syvelle (Newton), but he can run and he can catch we found out, so we’re training him at wide receiver this week.”

On possibly becoming bowl eligible: “We’re going to talk about trying to beat Arkansas. That’s the only thing that we’re going to concern ourselves with. We need to improve a lot. Hopefully we can do it.”

On playing in November: “Most teams either get a little bit better as the season goes or get a little bit worse, so we’re trying to get a little bit better. We’re still not there by any means. We’re going to try to play better this week.”

INJURY REPORT: Daccus Turman did not practice due to a left ankle sprain. Thomas Coleman was limited with a left ankle sprain. Carlos Thomas did not practice due to a concussion. He will be re-evaluated on Wednesday.