Nov. 6, 2012

South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier met with the media Tuesday afternoon to preview Saturday’s SEC home match up against Arkansas. The Gamecocks and Razorbacks will kick off at 12 p.m. on CBS.

Opening Statement
It’s good to be back after a week off. I think our players and team enjoyed the week off. I think we needed it. We’ve had a bunch of nagging injuries that hopefully will be healed up and ready to play this Saturday at noon when Arkansas comes in. We’ve gone nine straight weeks. I think Ohio State has gone 10 straight weeks, I think they’re the only team that has already played 10 games. We’re looking forward to the rest of the year. We’re going to see if we can start playing a little bit better on offense, defense, special teams, all of it. We’ll see if we can finish on a strong positive note. We’ve got a very good season going and we’re going to try to finish it. We’re looking forward to Arkansas coming in here Saturday. They got off to a rough start this year. They’ve seemed to regroup, I think they’re 4-5 coming here. Their hopes are to go to a bowl game, so they need a couple of wins. They’ll come in here ready to play us. They’ve certainly played us very well the last three or four years. We need to have a good game if we’re going to beat these guys. We’re looking forward to it. I know the fans are ready. We’ve still got a chance to win them all at home if we can play well these last two games. That is something that hasn’t happened in 25 years and hasn’t happened since we joined the SEC. We’ll see if we can do that. It’s a huge game for us. I think our guys are fresh. We had a pretty good practice last night as far as guys jumping around and they looked like they were having fun playing football. Hopefully that will continue as we go through this week and we’ll get ready to play our best game of the year against Arkansas at 12 noon Saturday.

On the secondary…
It could be a problem. Arkansas is actually better than Tennessee as far as throwing the ball according to statistics. Arkansas is first, Texas A&M and then Tennessee. We’re playing another outstanding passing team. When we play Clemson, it will be another one. Tennessee did pass block very well. We didn’t cover very well. We need to do some different stuff back there. We only played a couple coverages. When you play a good passing team you have to mix it up. We have worked on it for a couple of weeks now. We’ll find out if we’ve made any progress because Arkansas is the best passing team in the conference right now.

On Marcus Lattimore…
From what the doctors said, the surgery was successful. Now it’s rehab and rest for however long it takes. We’ll wait and see. He’s doing well; he’s back in Columbia. I think he will be at the game Saturday. We are looking forward to that. I guess I can announce that they are going to put his name on the wall for scoring the most touchdowns and the rushing touchdowns. I think he’s replacing Harold Green and George Rodgers. That announcement is going to be right before the game or between first and second quarters. I think our fans need to know that. Marcus will be here. I’m sure he’ll get an ovation, maybe like there’s never been here at Williams-Brice.

On Connor Shaw’s health…
He sprained his foot against Tennessee at the end of the game. He was gimping around last night at practice. He stood in the pocket and threw a few, but he couldn’t run last night. Hopefully by the middle of this week he can go. Dylan Thompson is ready to go. Dylan had a good practice. Connor has a little rehabbing to do before he can go this Saturday. I doubt if he could have played if we had a game last week the way he was gimping around last night.

On Kenny Miles…
Kenny has been the ultimate team player all the way through this. He had an opportunity late last year after Brandon Wilds had played very well earlier. Kenny had a sprained wrist that held him back a little while. Finally he was healthy and had a chance to lead us the last couple games of the year. He’s ready to go. He covers kickoffs and punts. He had a big tackle against Tennessee on that last punt. Offensively we did zero with that last possession. Tyler Hull made a fantastic punt and had Kenny made the tackle down there for over a 50-yard field exchange there. We haven’t had that this year. Most of our punts go about 33 or 36 yards. That was the time for a good one.

On Arkansas…
They’ve been pretty good. Two out of three of them were out there. In 2010 they clobbered us here too. Defensive we haven’t played very well against them and offensively, not too well either. We’ll see if we can’t go a lot better. We’ve got them here at our place. We’re pretty healthy right now with the exception of Marcus being out. Overall, we’re very health right now going into this game, but they’ve been a good team.

On the maturity of Kenny Miles…
It’s more mature than most of them. He’s been here five years. He’s played very well. I still remember four years ago he was our leading rusher, averaged over 5 yards a carry. He’s played well in the past. When Marcus came, he didn’t get many opportunities until the end of last year. He’s been a good team player. He came to me and asked if he could come back if he wanted to, and I said sure you can come back. He went through senior day last year before the Clemson game last year. He enjoys it here and he’s as super Gamecock. I think our fans and the all of them Gamecocks appreciate that he’s stayed for five years.

On Arkansas’ preseason hype…
You see all kind of teams every year that it could happen to, they are not the first. A lot was predicted. Southern California was predicted number one in the country at the beginning and they’ve got three losses now. It can happen. There’s no guarantee on what is going to happen. I think two years ago, Texas and Florida were top-five. Texas had a losing season and Florida didn’t have their typical year. Obviously, preseason doesn’t determine what happens.

On Jadeveon Clowney’s health…
He’s got something like D.J. Swearinger had last year. When the season is over, there is a surgery they can do. It’s not painful right now. He doesn’t practice all that much, he goes about half the time. He’s okay on Saturdays though, he’s ready to go.