Aug. 21, 2006

The South Carolina Gamecocks worked out Monday night in full pads at the Bluff Road practice fields. The night ended with a session of “Monday Night Football,” in which the younger players went 11-on-11.

Safety Brandon Isaac (hamstring and shoulder), safety Nick Prochak (hamstring) and tight end Andy Boyd (shoulder) remained sidelined and were joined by freshman defensive end Terrence Campbell, who suffered a sprained left knee on Sunday.

Following the practice, Head Coach Steve Spurrier met with the media:

“Just another practice today. We’ll try to have our last scrimmage tomorrow night. We’ll try to do some live kickoffs and punts and see if we can do it decently and start preparing for a real ball game a week from Thursday.”

On whether jobs will be won or lost in the scrimmage: “We’ve been watching these guys for two and a half to three weeks almost now. It will depend. Something could happen. We’re just trying to make sure we can get the kick off team out there and so forth.”

On giving scholarships to several walk-ons today: “We thought those guys were very deserving. They’re good guys and they’re all set to graduate. We have a criteria – who’s most deserving. That’s our criteria. Availability and who’s most deserving. When you’ve got (scholarships) available, you put them on. That encourages walk-ons. I’ve had a lot of good walk-ons. I was fortunate down at Florida. I didn’t have many at Duke. It costs too much at Duke. If a kid thinks he can play and gets overlooked, come on to South Carolina. We’ll give him a chance. It helps if they’re on pace to graduate. They go to class because they’re paying it out of their own money.”

On the backup quarterback situation: “It would be Cade (Thompson) or Chris Smelley right now, with Tommy Beecher slated to get some more work tomorrow night. Cade has done some good things recently. Chris has looked the best in the scrimmages. We’ll see how that plays out tomorrow night.”

The team will return to the practice fields twice on Tuesday, working out at 9:30 in the morning, then conducting a scrimmage at Williams-Brice Stadium in the evening. Both practices are closed to the public.