Aug. 20, 2007

After enjoying an off day on Sunday, the South Carolina Gamecock football squad returned to the Bluff Road practice fields on Monday night, working out for a little over two hours in full pads.

“It was just another Monday night of practice,” said Head Coach Steve Spurrier following the workout. “We won’t do too much tomorrow morning. We’ll go lightly tomorrow (morning), then practice again tomorrow night.”

The day off did not seem to help the squad, according to Coach Spurrier. “We’re still sort of sluggish and slow. We don’t look very good right now,” admitted the third-year Carolina coach. “We’ll have another little scrimmage Wednesday night and see if we can play a little better.”

Coach Spurrier was mostly displeased with the offense on Monday. “We’re still a couple of weeks away from playing, but we’re not a very good team right now, especially on offense,” he said. “We’re not the greatest at anything right now. Blake (Mitchell) struggles a lot, the line struggles, the receivers struggle. The only consistent thing is Cory (Boyd) and Mike (Davis) running the ball. But they’re not going to run very far if we can’t block. We’re just not as good as we can be. We struggled against Central Florida and we struggled against Mississippi State the last two years and we’ll probably struggle against Louisiana-Lafayette. Heck, we’re struggling throwing against air right now. But hopefully our defense will play. Maybe we’ll block a punt or run a kick back. There are other ways to win besides offense,” added Coach Spurrier.

On a more positive note, Monday saw the return of linebacker Jasper Brinkley following an ankle injury that sidelined him for a couple of days. “Jasper was back running around. He looked pretty good,” said Coach Spurrier.

The squad will work out twice on Tuesday, going at 9:30 a.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. Both practices are closed to the public.