Oct. 13, 2009
| Coach Spurrier |
| Moe Brown |
| Nathan Pepper |
| Eric Norwood |
Head Coach Steve Spurrier met with the media Tuesday afternoon to preview Saturday’s SEC game at No. 2 Alabama. The Gamecocks and Crimson Tide will kickoff at 7:45 p.m. on ESPN.
Opening Statement We’re looking forward to going to Tuscaloosa Saturday night at 6:45 their time, 7:45 eastern. It will be a late one getting back but that’s OK. It seems we play better at 7:30 than at 3:30. When you look at Alabama you notice how experienced these guys are. You wonder why they’re so good; they have seven seniors on defense starting and two juniors. On offense only three seniors and two juniors (start). They’re an experience team. The quarterback, Greg McElroy, is in his third year. That’s why they’re a solid team.
We’re looking forward to going over there and seeing what happens. Most of our guys are pretty healthy right now. Wesley Saunders should be back. Offensively we’re about as full strength as we can be. Defensively we lost a few guys and that hurts us a bit. Travian Robertson is a big loss inside and Rodney Paul (as well), but other than that we’re looking forward to seeing what happens in Tuscaloosa.
On if the West this season is stronger than the East
I don’t know about that. We don’t worry about that. We just try to get ready to play one game at a time. We still have a lot of sorry plays here and there that haven’t quite cost us some games. It did cost us one (against Georgia). Other than that we’ve been very fortunate to have the record we have. Everyone realizes that.
On Stephen Garcia gaining more respect after his performance
He’s had respect but you earn more as you go. Anytime you leap in there and throw your body around for a first down to possibly win the game, you earn a little more respect. They’ve respected Stephen. He’s done just about everything we’ve asked through the summer with preseason workouts and so forth. He’s trying. He still has some miscues, but not nearly as bad as last year. He’s making some progress.
On the offensive line
We got to where sometimes we struggled against a lot of teams up front, but then we do some good things also. Our line struggled. When one guy struggles on the offensive line, then they all can look pretty bad. Our guys are doing better. I think they can play better. Our defensive line is playing about as well as we can. We missed a few tackles last week that hopefully we won’t (miss) this week. The linemen certainly have a big control over every game.
On coaching against a high-profile opponent
You coach a little differently. You may play it a bit more wide open and hope everything hits. You certainly have no chance playing conservatively against a team like this unless you think your defense can play very well.
On the defensive speed
A little bit of the speed has helped. We’re not really big in there. Shaq Wilson is about a 210-pound outside linebacker. He does a good job to keep those big linemen off him. Cliff Matthews and Eric Norwood I think are the two best rush guys in the country. Everybody has a lot of good ones, but our two guys are as good as anyone. Now can we get Alabama in a throwing game? I don’t know … if that could happen late in the game, I think our pass rush should give them some problems if it comes to that. We’d have to get ahead before it could come to that type of game.
On Nick Saban
He is one of the best recruiters in the country. That’s why he’s one of the best coaches. I’d put him in the top four or five coaches in the country. He and his staff do very well. They’re very sound.
On playing against Alabama DT Terrence Cody
That No. 91 (Corey Peters) from Kentucky gave us all we could handle last week. He smashed us up pretty good at times. But Cody would probably be the biggest most physical guy we’ve had to block thus far this year.
On the run game success against Kentucky
We popped a couple of draw plays last week to put us in position to win the game. We certainly didn’t knock them back too much. Kentucky played Alabama tough. (Kentucky has) a good defensive line.
On Alshon Jeffery earning more playing time
You try to let everyone earn their way. Alshon kept getting better and better knowing where to go. We commented last night in practice that he’s practicing so much faster than he did earlier in the year. Last night he was flying around. He’s improved. He’ll tell you that. When you know where to go, then you can go faster. For a true freshmen to step in here and learn the offense without being here much in the summer, he’s come pretty quickly.
On young players
We’re relying on whoever we think are the best players to give us a chance to go win the game. We generally don’t talk about so many freshman and young guys, but we have said we don’t think this is the best team we’ll field here overall. We have a good team, but we’re not a dominant team (and you won’t be) until you have some fourth and fifth year players.
On C.C. Whitlock
C.C. has tried to do what’s right. That’s why you don’t give up quickly on some freshman that have problems. Hopefully after this game Akeem Aguste will be back. C.C. had a great game, he made eight tackles I think which is something he’s not familiar with doing. He’s improved, has gotten tougher and has proven he’s ready to play.
On Kenny Miles’s ascension up the depth chart
He seems to make some yards. That’s usually the reason one gets more carries than the other guys. He’s running forward and not going backwards, making a guy miss every now and then. Brian Maddox did some good things the other day, caught a nice pass down the sideline and made some good blocks. Jarvis Giles, we have to get him in every now and then. I wish we could get in Eric Baker. It’s hard to play all of them. Of course we’ve got Bryce Sherman. It’s hard to play five running backs.
