Sept. 4, 2007

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier met with the media on Tuesday afternoon to talk about this week’s game against SEC rival Georgia.

Opening Statement
“Looking forward to it. Hopefully we can play a lot better and hopefully we can be in the ball game there with the Georgia Bulldogs. It’s a crucial game for both schools and both teams. We’re looking forward to seeing what happens. Our team is actually pretty healthy right now. I don’t think any starters are going to be out except Emanuel Cook. He’s still going to be out another week with his appendicitis. Hopefully we can tackle a little bit better, slow them down somewhat on the ground and get in a good close ball game.”

On run defense
It wasn’t very pretty at times. They ran for 252 yards on us and that’s a lot of yards as you can see. Most of those strong defensive teams don’t give up quite that many. We’re concerned about that. Georgia in the last few years ran for over 200 in each game. We need to slow down their run a bit.

On tackling
We have to try to tackle better and play with a little more effort. We need to be in the right position and things like that.

On the defense
It wasn’t very good the other night but that’s one game. It wasn’t terrible. Louisiana-Lafayette is a very good running team. There offensive line blocked pretty well and the backs ran well. Hopefully we can tackle a little better and get some guys out there that can tackle better, but that game’s history. We held them to 14 points somehow so it’s hard to get too mad when we give up 14 points. If we can only give up 14 we should win most of our games.

On playing 11 freshmen in the opener
If you sit around and talk about all your freshmen, you’re looking for excuses. We don’t have any excuses. We are who we are. Maybe you can say our best team looks good down the road, but we’re not worrying down the road, we’re worried about this season and making the most of it with an eye on the future. We’re redshirting a lot of our freshman and maybe even redshirting some sophomore and junior guys that need a redshirt year.

On positives from Saturday’s performance
There was a lot of good play in the game. Tommy Beecher played well like we though. A couple of balls hit their safety in the facemask twice in a row. He banged a couple off their safety, but they played good coverage, you have to give them credit for that. Tommy other than that played pretty well. The running backs ran well. Cory Boyd and Mike Davis are two outstanding backs. The line was pretty decent. We didn’t have a lot of guys coming through cleanly as we’ve had early in each of the prior two seasons.

On defensive line
Marque Hall was moving around well in the second half. He and Eric Norwood were probably the best on the defensive side.

On Dustin Lindsay’s status
Dustin Lindsay may end up starting this week if he’s healthy and gets to practice today and tomorrow. Dusty is sort of a bigger linebacker than some of our guys. He’s tough and likes to hit people, so there’s a chance he may be out there a lot more.

On playing Georgia
They’re in our division and certainly it’s a crucial game. If we’re going to compete for the division we obviously need to start beating them someday. Hopefully this year, and if not we’ll try to do it next year.

On changes to the depth chart
Obviously we didn’t tackle very well, but we still held them to 14 points. I don’t want to get on our guys too much because we did keep them out of the endzone. I was hoping we were past those kinds of games. I was hoping we were past Wofford running for 290 yards, third-and-25 and they almost make it. We’re not past that. It’s frustrating but it is what it is. We have to keep coaching and keep making changes, the way I look at it. If a player can’t get it done, you try the next guy. You may come back to that guy, but you keep changing until you find some guys that want to play well and can play well. You may find out that that’s the best we can do and that’s the best we can tackle. If we come to that conclusion then we are what we are.

On divisional rivals
It’s a division game. All SEC games count and obviously division games count more. If you have two teams tied, it’s based on how one team performance against the other. It’s just as important for our team as it is for theirs.