Sept. 2, 2014

The 21st-ranked South Carolina football team spent Tuesday afternoon at the Bluff road practice fields preparing for Saturday’s non-conference showdown with the East Carolina Pirates.

Game time is set for 7 p.m. ET at Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia. The game will be televised nationally on ESPNU with Anish Shroff and Kelly Stouffer in the booth and Cara Capuano on the sidelines.

The Gamecock defense, which surrendered a school record for yards allowed in a game against Texas A&M, knows they have some work to do to be ready for the fast-paced Pirate attack.

“We’ve just been trying to become better tacklers, fly around, have more fun,” said linebacker T.J. Holloman after Tuesday’s practice session. “Last week we didn’t have much fun out there. We’re just trying to relax and fly around.” Holloman echoed head coach Steve Spurrier’s comments that the pace of practice has picked up this week. “We’ve been running around in practice. All the drills have been fast,” said Holloman. “We’re out there competing and going as fast as we can to try to simulate the game.”

Holloman noted that ECU’s offense scheme is similar to that of Texas A&M. “It’s very similar. They do a lot of spread-out. They dink and dunk a lot. They try to get the ball in as many people’s hands as they can. They like to pass the ball. They’re more pass than run. When they run, it’s more like a zone scheme.”

Holloman knows the defense will need to improve its pass rush if they are to slow down the Pirate attack. “We’ve been practicing on pass rush more. We’ve been doing one-on-one drills and whole line drills to try to simulate the actual game mode,” noted Holloman. “We’ve pumped practice up in relation to the previous practices that we had. We’ve been working hard and will continue to work hard. You should see the result on Saturday.”

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