July 9, 2007
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina Head Football Coach Steve Spurrier met with members of the media Monday at Williams-Brice Stadium. Following are some of his comments.
Opening Statement
“We have heard workouts are going a lot better than the prior two years that I have been here. We don’t have 100 percent attendance, but from what we hear, it’s been the best of the three years. Hopefully that will pay dividends when we play in those close ballgames this coming year. For us to have a big year, we have to win some games that come down to the wire.”
“Second thing is I’d like to congratulate Crystal Garrett, Miss South Carolina. She’s a student here at USC and what intrigued me is that in the write-up today, she said `I did not listen when people told me that I could not sing. I knew I had a God-given talent,’ and she proved it. She had an asthma condition I think when she was a child and she did not listen when people told her she couldn’t do something. That’s sort of our motto around here in football. We don’t need to listen to people who tell us we can’t do anything because we certainly can.”
“As far as the incoming freshmen, it appears right now that we will not have to greyshirt anybody. Three guys are not going to qualify. One was not admitted. We still have one or two with clearinghouse issues or what-have-you. Overall, it looks like – and it’s not 100 percent sure – that about 24 or 25 of the 29 will be here ready to go in September. Those are some close numbers that I can give you right now. Incoming freshmen are here now and start summer school tomorrow. They are able to join with our players during summer workouts starting tomorrow.”
“I’ve sort of been asked to do a personal web site, so this year we’re going to do one. SpurrierHBC.com is the name of it. Hopefully it can give our fans a quick insight to what’s going on and so forth and learn a little bit about our TV shows and radio shows that are going to be on it. That’s something that people have approached me with in the past and I said no, but it seems like most all these coaches around the country have one now, so we decided to go ahead and do one. Hopefully our fans will get something out of that. Again, it’s SpurrierHBC.com. HBC stands for Head Ball Coach in case you all didn’t know.”
“The Ladies Clinic is July 28. We still have some Clemson game balls. The Clemson game balls have been a huge success this summer throughout the Gamecock Clubs, where I think we sold a little over 2,800. Again, hopefully we can look back and say that game changed our fortunes to the good for a long time around here.”
“Our players report August 3 with the first practice August 4. As most of our fans know, we practice a lot at night. We play a lot of our games at night. I think the Georgia game is at 5:45 or so. Our early home games, the Louisiana-Lafayette game, is I believe a 7:00 game, so we’ll do a lot of nighttime practicing because we play at night and also the weather is better and we can get more done at that time.”
“Our incoming freshman class is almost all here and we’re looking forward to starting practice August 4.”
Regarding the quarterbacks beside Blake Mitchell:
“We don’t know exactly what Stephen Garcia can do yet, so we’ll get a chance to watch him soon. I have no idea what he’ll do. I really don’t. All I’ve seen is him throw a few in shorts just like you all have. Other than that, Chris Smelley is second and Tommy Beecher is next. They are pretty close right now, and then Stephen Garcia. Those are our four guys right now. Kenny McKinley was a high school quarterback. Worse comes to worse if we can’t block anybody like we did last year, we can always put Kenny back there and let him run around like Syvelle did for us. Syvelle really helped us last year when our o-line was struggling mightily during the beginning of the season.”
Regarding which of the incoming recruits did not qualify or who may be in jeopardy of qualifying:
“I don’t want to mention names on all the situations and so forth. I’m sure you all will research that.”
Regarding the status of Quintin Richardson:
“Quintin is supposed to be okay. Certainly that was a very serious situation and I don’t know how it all started. You try to teach your players to stay out of situations, but maybe sometime they can’t be avoided. I don’t know all the details and I don’t know who does know all the details except those who were right there at the time. He’s supposed to be fine and supposed to be able to start practice, certainly by August he’ll be ready to go.”
Regarding the fact that attendance is better at off-season workouts and that players are getting acclimated to his system:
“This is our third year going into Carolina Football, so it takes a little bit. We’re pleased that Cory Boyd and Jasper Brinkley stayed. Both those guys could have been third, fourth or fifth round picks – I’m not sure exactly, but they want to stay here and play football at South Carolina. It’s encouraging that they believe that we’ve got something good going here and certainly those are two of our best leaders. The guys on the team understand what the program is. If they don’t get with it, chances are they’re not going to be here. Hopefully the message is out there and hopefully we are recruiting players that really want to be good. They want to graduate from our school, they want to be on a championship team and they want to do their part to help us do that.”
