Sept. 25, 2006

Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina head football coach Steve Spurrier met with the media on Monday afternoon as the Gamecocks prepare for Auburn. The game is scheduled for this Thursday, Sept. 28 with kickoff set for 7:47 pm ET on ESPN.

Opening Statement
“It’s a busy week but certainly one that is very doable, I think, as far as being prepared. I sort of think that some times we have too many days to put in too many plays and stuff like that. Sometimes the simpler you keep things for your players, maybe the better they will play. We are looking forward to the game here on Thursday night. I was telling our guys, the last time we were on national TV we sort of stunk up the place against Georgia but fortunately Texas and Ohio State were playing at the same time so most of the country didn’t see us. We did have some opportunities and certainly didn’t cash in any of them against Georgia. I see Auburn as a very, similar athletic team that plays extremely hard and hustles. They play fast; they make very few mistakes in their assignments. That’s why they were conference champions two years ago and 7-1 last year, and easily could have been considered the best team. We gotta believe we have a chance. We gotta believe if the ball bounces our way here and there that we can hang on the field with these guys. We will be ready to play and see what happens.”

On Auburn’s defense
“They play a very aggressive style, I’m sure they will mix it up against us. It seems like almost everyone we play has a little bit different of a plan when they play us, so we will expect a little bit of everything. This year they have been a very aggressive bump and run team that is not going to concede anything to you. If you get open, you have to earn your way to get open against these guys. Our biggest concern is always pass protection. We may have to keep some guys in the backfield and load up to help our young linemen. We have to go play. We have to give our team a chance to be successful to have an opportunity to win the game.”

“They are all well-coached in position and are a very fast team. Very similar to Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, they are all fast teams. I think our defensive team is a lot faster than we were last year; of course our big key is stopping the run. We have struggled a little bit. Our pass defense, we are pretty highly ranked in the country, we need to try to force these guys to throw. If we can do that, it means we have stopped their run somewhat.”

On the team’s effort last week vs. Florida Atlantic
“Overall we had better effort. It was much better for our team. For us to have a chance this week it has to be even a little better. Assignment-wise, still not near as good as it needs to be. The offensive line struggled somewhat against assignments, blocking this guy or that guy, block the widest rusher, things like that. When you have a freshman left tackle and some new guys in there, you expect a few missed assignments but we shouldn’t be missing as many assignments up front as we are missing. That was a little disappointing. The overall effort was better, it still can be improved.”

On practice this week
“We will try to have a pretty good practice tonight. We didn’t do much yesterday, had some meetings and so forth yesterday. We will try to have a real good practice tonight, similar to last week.”

On James Thompson returning
“We will watch him during practice this week and see how capable he is of playing. James is back on the team and we will give him a good look this week. He will certainly suit up and be available.”

On Auburn’s success over the last few years under Tommy Tuberville
“I would say the main thing he has done is recruited very well. He has excellent coaches. Continuity with coaches although I think this is his third defensive coordinator over the last three years, but he was a defensive guy himself before he became a head coach. He sort of overlooks the defense from what I understand and leaves the offense to the offensive coordinator. I would just say the continuity of recruiting very solid classes. Auburn’s facilities are right there with the best in the nation. In fact our athletic director, Eric Hyman, made sure that President Sorensen went with us on the Auburn trip last year just to look at their academic learning center and some of their other facilities. When you have some of the best facilities in the nation, stadium seats 90-92,000, something like that, all the SEC teams almost have that. Of course everyone can’t win. We are just in the process here to getting our facilities close to what these other schools have. If we can get close we can recruit with them. Again it is continuity of coaches and you can’t have those bad years of recruiting, you can’t have 12-15 JC guys coming in that can’t make it. You have to be solid in recruiting year after year.”

On the offense in the last two weeks
“We actually had some success against Wofford with Syvelle in there and so forth. We actually scored five straight possessions in the game and sort of went blank in the fourth quarter. Maybe we just called some bad plays, I don’t know what happened. I know we didn’t block very well but we did have some success moving the ball against those guys and that gave us hope that maybe we could move it against Florida Atlantic. We still had some real good individual plays and still messed up a bunch of pass protection assignments that was discouraging. Like I’ve said, not too many schools are playing two freshman offensive linemen in the lineup. That’s our best players and they should be really really good players in their third and fourth year and maybe pretty good players next year.”

On Syvelle Newton’s performance last week
“I think Syvelle did much better dropping back and letting it go last week. He made some beautiful throws. I’m telling you, he went back threw it in there in the hitch and go, curl and go, he dropped both of those perfectly to Sidney (Rice). He made some real nice throws. He didn’t run very much, I think he is sort of fancying himself as a drop back passer. He really is a good passer and for a guy that has only played two games, to tie a school record with five (TD’s) and we took him out with about 13 minutes in the 3rd quarter. I guess we could have left him in to maybe go ahead and break the record but he sort of hurt his foot a little bit. His foot got twisted somewhat but he said he should be fine by Thursday night.”

On Cory Boyd’s status
“He is going to try to practice (today). We will keep him out if he is not 100 percent. Mike Davis and Taylor Rank can play if Cory is not ready. But if Cory is up to 100 percent, he will be out there playing for us. If he is not, Mike and Taylor ran extremely well last week. Robert Gillespie was really proud of both those guys with they way they ran, held on to the ball and picked their holes. They picked their holes pretty well, and had some pretty good blocking at times also last week.”

On last year’s game at Auburn
“That was a year ago and we got about what we expected or deserved. I told one of our coaches yesterday, not only were we not really into it, but also coaching-wise, we all had bad games. I know I had a terrible game as a coach. We had about 60 plays on a wristband for Antonio (Heffner) and I couldn’t find them half the time, he couldn’t get the signal half the time, and we couldn’t even get lined up. We should have gone into that game with 10 plays and let Antonio run the ball all over the place or something. We had way too much stuff and we wouldn’t have had much of a chance anyway. We had way too much stuff for him and for our team to do offensively. That one is history, you live and learn, regroup and go from there.”

“That game sort of may have helped us to tell you the truth. The teams I have coached in the past, sometimes when you get clobbered, you regroup and turn it around. We were talking about the last time I coached a Florida team (at Mississippi State), we got clobbered and I mean clobbered. They rushed for over 300 yards against us in 2000 and scored 48, 49, something like that, and we came back and regrouped somehow, and won the conference that year. We were dead bottom in defense and got up to 8th when the year was over in total defense and won the conference. That game really helped that team somehow. I’ve always felt that your team can improve from really getting soundly beaten than losing a one or two-point game. Those hurt and carry on for a long time. Watching Michigan State lose that heartbreaker (to Notre Dame), gosh you hope they can come back and have a decent season but I think it is going to be tough for those guys.”

On the team’s confidence
“I think we have a little more confidence going into this game. Syvelle has played two in a row, we are fairly healthy at wide receiver, Kenny and Sidney are healthy, and hopefully some of those other receivers can come around and help us. Our running backs, if our line holds up pretty well, hopefully we can hang in there tough with them. Our defense I think will play better this year. It is all wait and see.”

On Syvelle Newton and Blake Mitchell
“We always have both of them ready to play and go from there. Blake did some good things last week, some not so good. Obviously, Syvelle has made some more plays in the last two games than we have had all year. Obviously, he is our guy to play quarterback right now.”