Oct. 12, 2011

The No. 15/13 University of South Carolina football team (5-1, 3-1 SEC) returned to the Bluff Road practice fields Wednesday afternoon. The Gamecocks are preparing for Saturday’s SEC contest at Mississippi State (3-3, 0-3 SEC). Game time is set for 12:21 pm ET and the game will be televised on the SEC Network.

After an eventful day around the program on Tuesday, things returned to normal on Wednesday. Bruce Ellington responded to Stephen Garcia’s departure. “A couple guys were disappointed. We didn’t get a chance to see him. We just have to move on and worry about playing football. That’s a distraction we’re not going to think about and just continue to play. We’ve got to stay focused and continue on playing football.”

Ellington is keeping close tabs on the men’s basketball program, which starts practice this week. “I went by the office today and talked to Coach (Neil) Berry for a little while. I’ll probably go by and see how they’re doing. I won’t practice though, because I don’t want to get hurt, but I’ll probably go by and see how they’re doing.”

The Gamecocks will return to the practice fields Thursday afternoon at 4 p.m.