Sept. 27, 2012

The University of South Carolina football squad worked out at the Bluff Road practice fields on Thursday afternoon. The sixth-ranked Gamecocks (4-0, 2-0 SEC) are preparing for Saturday’s SEC Eastern Division matchup with Kentucky (1-3, 0-1 SEC). Game time is set for 7 p.m. at Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington with ESPN2 airing the contest nationally. Mike Patrick and Ed Cunningham will call the game with Jeannine Edwards working the sidelines.

The Gamecocks expect senior cornerback Akeem Auguste to be ready to play on Saturday night. “We think he’s 100 percent, but we won’t take him out there and let him play 50 plays,” said defensive coordinator Lorenzo Ward. “The plan is to play him 15 – 18 plays in this ballgame and try to increase it next week against Georgia. But he’s done well (in practice). Jimmy (Legree) is the starting corner and Akeem is his backup until he proves that he can play better than Jimmy,” reminded Ward. “We feel good we have three corners that that we know can play in any situation, so we feel good about having Akeem back, but he’ll have to work his way back to become a starter.”

Ward also noted that T.J. Gurley played well in D.J. Swearinger’s absence last week. Gurley is listed as the second team safety behind Brison Williams this week. “We feel good that we have three solid safeties. We have three good corners that we can count on and three good safeties that we can count on.”

The Wildcats present different problems for the Gamecock defense than what they have seen this year in the spread offenses of East Carolina and Missouri. “The Kentucky quarterback has been sacked four times in four games so they feel good about their protection,” noted Ward. “I think Kentucky’s going to come out and try to run the football on us. They’re going to line up and run the football. They had 160 yards running the ball against Florida. So they feel like they can run the football. If you’re going to have a chance to win a game in this league, you’ve got to run the football.”

The Gamecocks will practice on Friday in Columbia before leaving for Lexington Friday afternoon.