Aug. 19, 2010

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After being rained out of its scheduled scrimmage on Wednesday night, the University of South Carolina football squad went back into Williams-Brice Stadium on Thursday afternoon for some 11-on-11 action, with the offense scoring four touchdowns during a 64-play scrimmage.

“We thought the effort was a lot better today, even though it was about 98 degrees,” said head coach Steve Spurrier following the workout. “But guys are in pretty good shape. We had some good plays. The offense drove the ball 70 yards I think the first two times and scored a couple of touchdowns, so that’s encouraging. We ran the ball pretty well on those trips and after that there was a lot of sputtering around with the third group and the second group.”

Connor Shaw, a true freshman from Flowery Branch, Ga., took the first snaps from center on Thursday and led his unit down the field on a five-play, 70-yard scoring drive. Shaw hit Tori Gurley with a 25-yard pass and Kenny Miles broke a 27-yard run, setting up Shaw’s six-yard run to paydirt. Shaw finished the afternoon by completing 5-of-8 passes for 111 yards and a touchdown.

“Connor Shaw played well again,” noted the Head Ball Coach. “Our other quarterbacks had too many sacks again. (But) we eliminated a lot of careless play. We were doing the little things somewhat better than we were last week.”

The Gamecock offense scored a second time on a 70-yard drive with true freshman Marcus Lattimore doing most of the heavy lifting. Lattimore carried three straight times for 57 yards, including a 39-yard scamper, and capped it off with a 13-yard burst into the endzone. Lattimore was the game’s leading rusher with 63 yards on six carries. The squad totaled 30 rushes for 131 yards.

Incumbent quarterback Stephen Garcia hit on five straight passes in the third touchdown drive, with the final completion going three yards to Jarvis Giles for the score. The redshirt junior signal-caller hit on 11-of-16 passes for 113 yards, but also threw two interceptions, with both picks coming by junior safety Akeem Auguste.

Shaw led the final scoring drive, hitting freshman Nick Jones on a 17-yard strike for the score. The key play of the drive came when Shaw scrambled to his right to elude the pass rush and found Kenny Miles behind the defense for a 53-yard pickup.

“We’ll be a different team this year,” said Coach Spurrier. “We may have a lot of different players in key positions, so we’ll be a different team. I’m fired up about seeing what happens. I’m looking forward to two weeks from now and seeing how our guys play. We think our offense has a chance to be much improved. The work habits of our O-linemen are getting better.”

The Gamecocks will return to the Bluff Road practice fields on Friday afternoon at 4:15 p.m.

SCORING PLAYS:

Connor Shaw 6-yard run (Spencer Lanning kick)

Marcus Lattimore 13-yard run (Spencer Lanning kick)

Jarvis Giles 3-yard pass from Stephen Garcia (Spencer Lanning kick)

Nick Jones 17-yard pass from Connor Shaw (Spencer Lanning kick)

PASSING:

Stephen Garcia 11-16-2-113, 1 TD; Connor Shaw 5-8-0-111, 1 TD; Andrew Clifford 9-10-1-85, 0 TD. TOTALS: 25-34-3-309 2 TD.

RUSHING:

Marcus Lattimore 6-63, 1 TD; Kenny Miles 4-31; Jarvis Giles 7-27; Connor Shaw 2-19, 1 TD; Bryce Sherman 3-13; DeMario Bennett 1-8; Ace Sanders 1-4; Stephen Garcia 3-(-13); Andrew Clifford 3-(-21). TOTALS: 30-131, 2 TD.

RECEIVING:

Ace Sanders 4-52; Tori Gurley 3-37; Mike Triglia 3-36; DeAngelo Smith 3-20; Kenny Miles 2-62; Alshon Jeffery 2-16; Lamar Scruggs 2-16; DeMario Bennett 1-23; Nick Jones 1-17, 1 TD; Marcus Lattimore 1-12; Justice Cunningham 1-12; Jarvis Giles 1-3, 1 TD; Cedrick Snead 1-3. TOTALS: 25-309, 2 TD.