Nov. 1, 2005

Columbia, S.C. –

South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier met with the media on Tuesday afternoon as the Gamecocks continue preparations for this weekend’s game at Arkansas.

(Opening statement)
“Obviously we have a huge game this week at Arkansas. They are probably a lot better team than their record and that’s why they are favored over us. It will be tough but every game we play is tough. We know that. If we have a chance to beat them we really got to play well and probably play a heck of a lot better than we played last week. So that’s what we are trying to do this week. We are trying to improve this week, eliminate careless mistakes, fumbling kickoffs, punts, roughing the punter. We did a little bit everything last week. Hopefully we can correct a lot of those mistakes and slow down their rushing attack, put a little pressure on their quarterback in passing situations. It should be a good big game. A lot on the line for both teams, we are looking forward to it.”

(On Arkansas’ defense)
“They have a pressure man-to-man scheme. Their coordinator was at NC State last year; I think they were first in the country in defense. They haven’t played all that super this year. They have a blitzing man-to-man defense. It hasn’t been great this year but they are certainly very capable of shutting us down.”

(On last week’s game at Tennessee)
“That game is history. We are trying not to revisit that game. Like I said yesterday, we were extremely fortunate and we feel very thankful that it worked out to win that game.”

(On Antonio Heffner playing wide receiver)
“He could go out there and play. He gives us some added depth at wide receiver with Noah (Whiteside) spraining his foot and of course Syvelle (Newton) is out. We are a little thin at the wide receiver position. I think Antonio can practice at wide receiver and still be ready to be the backup quarterback.”

(On playing with intensity this season)
“We are playing with more effort than obviously the Alabama game, which was probably the worst one that it all showed up. We’ve made some improvement; there is no question about that. Our team is learning a little more about how to play, but we still have a lot of errors here and there that fortunately didn’t cost us the game last week. I can assure you that our coaching staff is not sitting around patting ourselves on the back because of the way our guys played last game. We are trying to correct all the mistakes. I think our offensive line has got to block better, our linebackers have to start making more tackles. Our secondary guys are the leading tacklers every week. We need those linebackers and d-lineman to get a little more active up front. There are a lot of things we need to improve on.”

(On running back Mike Davis)
“Mike can play better. He got knocked backwards; I think we counted five or six times during the course of the game. He needs to keep his feet working near contact better. The draw plays popped out nicely, three of four times. He had some good runs in there. He dropped a couple passes though. He’s been catching most of them. He played pretty well but again we hope he can play better.”

(On wide receiver Kenny McKinley)
“The catches he made (at Tennessee) were sensational. Kenny has really come around and he will be starting this week. Kenny, Kris Clark and Sidney (Rice) will be the three most likely if we are in a three wide receiver set. He’s been training. (Assistant Coach Steve Spurrier Jr.) has done a pretty good job with those young guys. We still don’t know if Carlos (Thomas) will be ready to play this week but Kenny has come along faster than any of the freshmen wide receivers to this point. Carlos has a lot of talent also, we’ll probably know late this week if he will be able to play.”

(On wide receiver Sidney Rice)
“He has come out of nowhere and handled it very well. I hope all the attention has not affected him, it doesn’t seem to. He comes out and practices real hard every day. He runs every route full speed, I mean he practices just like he did before the Georgia game, which was his first game ever. He’s excited when he helps the team win the game. He has been an excellent team player and an excellent example for the young guys on how to practice. As far as his ability to catch the ball, I think he’s as good as any receiver I’ve been fortunate to coach. I don’t know if he has a dropped ball this year or not. In fact, probably a big part of the wins we have had is very few drops by the wide receivers. Whatever they are doing in practice is helping out and paying dividends.”

(On quarterback Blake Mitchell)
“I think that was his best game the other night. He had a few errant plays here and there but not too many. He threw to the guy underneath, finally, we’ve been talking about that for six, seven weeks. The short passes ended up going for as big of gainers we had throughout the game. He’s coming around, he’s making better decisions. He has the throwing ability and is making a lot better decisions now.”

(On Run Defense)
“We have to be better against the run than we were against Tennessee. Tennessee has not been a good running team. They were with us, three yards a carry going into the game last week. Arkansas right now is ranked best in the conference in rushing, so we have really got to get as many guys up there and still play solid pass defense.”

(On Team’s Goals)
“Obviously, our team’s goal is to win six. When we were 2-3 there, we thought that if we could get to six victories it would be a wonderful season. It still would be a wonderful season if we could get to six victories. That’s pretty much where we are right now and playing one game at a time. I guess we lost our first three conference games against some pretty tough opponents and we’ve managed to win three in a row and yet we have not led at halftime in any of the three. That’s sort of interesting right there and really just says we may not be any better than those guys but we made plays here and there that worked out for us to win the game. That tells us that we really have to come prepared our best to play or we probably don’t have much of a chance.”