Dec. 29, 2006

Recap | Final Stats | Notes | Photo Gallery

South Carolina Head Coach Steve Spurrier

“I’m not much of a hat guy but I guess I will wear one tonight. These are nice hats. I appreciate the Autozone Liberty Bowl for putting on a wonderful week for the Gamecocks. It was a game where we had a lot of good plays here and there. Houston made a lot of super plays. But at the end our defense stopped them.”

“They couldn’t stop us until we needed to make a first down to clinch the game, and we couldn’t do it. I give Houston credit for stopping us, and I give our defensive players credit for stopping them guys to win the game for us.”

“It was a good win. Eight wins is good for us right now. We had seven last year, and we shoot for nine or 10 next year. We’ve got Blake Mitchell coming back Jordin Lindsey and just about the entire offensive next year. We have to replace a couple; three offensive lineman. Hopefully we can do that. We have just about the whole defense coming back.”

“I still believe our defense can play a lot better. We got out of position in the first half, but to hold Houston to eight points was a very good defensive effort in the second half.”

South Carolina Defensive End Jordin Lindsey

On the performance of USC quarterback Black Mitchell
“It was very satisfying. He had a great game and made a lot of big plays. We just ended up scoring more points than they did.”

On his interception
“I was looking up to recognize the screen. I looked up and he threw it right to me. I couldn’t believe it. I tried to get as much yardage on it as I could after the reception.”

On preparing for Houston
“We studied them hard. We just had a couple breakdowns here and there, but we had a good plan against them.”

On the Houston offense
“It’s not really a confusing offense, but it’s a fast paced offense. We’ve got to think quicker and react quicker.”

On Houston’s speed
“They’ve got tremendous speed outside. We had to chase them down. They’re just really hard to keep up with.”

Houston Head Coach Art Briles

Opening Remarks:
“South Carolina is a very good football team. I thought they came in well prepared, and I thought they executed well. Their offense, defense and special teams were good tonight, as I think our guys were. I think we came in very well prepared. We were very excited and anxious about the game, and I think we performed well as a football team. I think I may have done some thinks as a coach that may have hurt the outcome of the game. In a couple of instances we had a couple of unforced errors that I will take the fall for. But, just like our team has all season long, we battled hard. Our guys play hard, they fight hard, they believed. That’s an inspiration to me as a coach.”

On having first and goal from the eight and coming away with no points.
“At that stage of the game, it made a difference in the ballgame. We’re down by two with first and goal at the eight. We have the opportunity to gain a little bit of momentum, and we had a bad series of events happen right there. You have to give some credit to South Carolina’s crowd. We had to go silent count down there and it disrupted our exchange out of the shotgun. That was a big turning point. Even if we fall on our face, we have the chance at a 25 yard field goal from the eight. So that was a turning point in the game.”

Houston Wide Receiver Vincent Marshall

On his 77-yard touchdown reception in the first half
“They had been playing us man the whole time. I love man coverage. He was in front of me and I made a move and I saw Kevin (Kolb) scrambling so I tried to get in his vision and he saw me and it was over after that.”

On South Carolina
“I didn’t realize they were that kind of team I thought they were a run team off the play action. They really threw a lot. More than I thought they would.”

“They played a little bit more zone defense and took the middle of the field away from us. They had a safety over the top and a man in my face and they made it hard to throw deep. They blitzed and kept people in Kevin’s (Kolb) face. The zone hurt us in the second half.”