Dec. 20, 2005

South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier met with the media on Tuesday afternoon as the Gamecocks are in the midst of preparations for the Independence Bowl on Dec. 30 in Shreveport, La.

On practice:
“It’s been going, I think, very well. It’s been cool, but very good. We had a little rain Sunday, but the guys have practiced pretty well. This afternoon, we’re going to bump heads a little bit, hit a little bit, try to stay healthy. We’ll do that in the stadium here to get a little taste of more of a game-type atmosphere. Then, we’re going to let the young guys, guys who haven’t played much all year, scrimmage some. Today will be a very important practice. Then, we’ll review a little bit tomorrow and the guys will head home for the holidays and report back Christmas night. We’ll practice here the next morning and then fly out to Shreveport. We’re looking forward to it. None of us have ever coached a game or played a game in Shreveport, so it’ll be a first.”

On Missouri:
“Missouri’s a good team, a team that went 6-5 and played extremely well at times on offense. They had a lot of plays this year. They had 898 plays in 11 games. We’ve got to try to get them off the field, and hopefully our offense can stay out there. I’ve been saying that all year, I’ll say it again: We need to get them off quicker and we need to stay out there longer. We’ll see if we can do it or not.”

“They’ve been a good third-down offense. They throw a lot. Obviously, they make a lot of first downs and they must catch passes and run out of bounds, too, because the clock doesn’t go anywhere. If the clock doesn’t move a lot then certainly you can have a lot more plays.”

On Missouri quarterback Brad Smith:
“A lot of times, Missouri has no backs standing next to him when he’s in the shot gun. They get in an empty set and he’s going to throw or run. He runs more than the tailbacks. He’s an excellent athlete with his ability to run, just like the Texas quarterback Vince Young. You hope to try to make him throw the ball and not beat you running. We’re going to try to contain him and cover their guys and get pressure on him.”

On time off between the ending of the regular season and the bowl game:
“Sometimes players get well-rested, have some good practices and play well, and sometimes teams lose it when they haven’t played in 40 days. I think Missouri finished the same time as we did, so it will be close to, I think, 40 days or so since we last played a game. They’ve had a lot of practice time like we have. Really, there’s no excuse, whoever plays the best should win the game.”

On the team’s demeanor returning to practice:
“They’ve been fine, just like the regular season. I think the seniors, obviously, want to go out a winner. The young guys are trying to get better, practicing to improve. We’re looking forward to the game, got a lot to play for. We’re right on that bubble to be in the Top 25 or not. We had 10 coaches vote for us at 7-4, maybe we can get 10 or 15 more to vote for us. Usually 8-4 gets you ranked, and that was one of our goals. We’ve got a shot at it, we’ll see if we can do it.”