Nov. 3, 2005

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

“We’re as ready as we can be to go play Arkansas Saturday. Get out there, wake up and go play. This will be the earliest one this year, 12:30 Eastern, so we should be ready to play well. Hopefully we will.”

“Daccus (Turman) ran around a little bit, (Thomas) Coleman ran around a little bit. If Coleman can’t go James Thompson will get to play again. If Daccus doesn’t go, Lanard Stafford will be our fullback and Mike Davis the starting tailback. Carlos (Thomas) is not going. They’re going to hold him out a game.”

On Blake Mitchell: “He’s looked about like always. He looks good at times. He’s improving. Hopefully we can get off to a better start. We’ve started slow the last few games.”

“Tremaine Tyler is one of the starters (at safety). Brandon Isaac is at corner now, backing up one of the corners.”

On needing one win to become bowl eligible: “I’m happy to be in this position. Four weeks ago if you said we were playing for number six right now, we’d be doing cartwheels. We understand we’re in a pretty doggone good position, but we also now we could lose out. It’s not going to be easy, but we have a chance to win some of these games too. That’s what we’re going to try to do.”

“(Arkansas is) a pretty good running team and hasn’t been a very good passing team. But they’ve got a new quarterback and maybe he’s a passer, who knows? I’m sure he is a passer. Maybe they’re going to come out firing at us.”

“We don’t talk about road or home, we’re just trying to play the best we can. If we’re into the game and playing sharp, it won’t matter too much.”