Sept. 16, 2014

South Carolina Head Coach Steve Spurrier
Opening Statement
“Vandy is a team that had a big win last week. They struggled their first couple games, but last week I think they scored 14 or 15 points in the fourth quarter and had a big win over UMass, which is a pretty good team also. Derrick Mason, first year coach, excellent guy, good coach, defensive coordinator at Stanford the last four or five years and Vandy plays tough. Watching them on tape, their players play smart, aggressive and hopefully we can go to Nashville and play like a good team and hopefully we can play better as we go through the season. We’re looking forward to the challenge. It’ll be a different environment. Obviously, having three at home here at Williams-Brice, having a huge home crowd that was instrumental in our success last week and the week before. It won’t quite be there but I’m sure we’ll have a good congregation of our fans in Nashville to help cheer us on. We still have a lot of improvement and hopefully that’ll happen when we got to Nashville.”

On if he considers Pharoh Cooper his No. 2 quarterback
“He’s been taking the No. 2 snaps. He’s sort of a wildcat quarterback, using him in there every now and then and so forth, so the other players haven’t had a chance to play much and who knows how much they’ll play this year. (We have to) wait and see how it plays out.”

On the tight ends and receivers
“(It) happened to be Busta (Anderson’s) week to get some balls coming his way and he caught everything. All the receivers I think caught just about everything. We had a couple there at the end of the first half, a high one that Nick Jones and Pharoh couldn’t hold on to, but overall the players caught the ball and took care of it.”

On Dylan Thompson’s play through three games
“We had one bad play in the game, that interception. They had a guy sitting right there waiting on it in front of Nick. He jumped in front of Nick. We try to teach our receivers every now and then that maybe you have to jump in there and knock it down or don’t let the other guy pick it. Their guy jumped in front of it and obviously not a good play, but somehow or another it didn’t hurt us as it turned out.”

On Thompson’s confidence
“We had to calm Dylan down. He never really did calm down the other night. Our entire bench was jumping around too much after Brandon [Wilds] had that touchdown run to put us up. I said, `Men there’s still 13 minutes left and you guys are acting like the game’s over, way too big a celebration’, and Dylan was part of it. I said, `Dylan, you’re the quarterback, you’re not supposed to be jumping around like it’s over. Just keep your minds on the game,’ and fortunately it worked out for us. Fortunately, it was only two more possessions for each team in the 13 minutes.”

On Skai Moore’s play
“He’s making some tackles. Hopefully we can get him some help with the other guys out there. Skai’s a good player and he did have a good game the other night. (He) got a game ball for making a lot of tackles. I don’t think he’s had an interception yet, but he had several of those last year. He was our leading tackler and interception guy. He’s a very good player.”

On Vanderbilt since James Franklin left
“They did have a lot of seniors on that team last year. They’re a little different. They have some youngsters on defense, like we do, so they’re a little different. I think half of his recruiting class followed him to Penn State also, but Vandy is not a whole lot different, not much different from when he was there. Their players play smart, play hard. They challenge you, play a tight man-to-man every now and then. They challenge receivers. If you catch one, they’re hanging all over you. That’s what we’re trying to get our guys to do.”

On Pharoh Cooper in space
“He’s an excellent runner as we all know. We’re still trying to find some ways to get the ball in his hands a little bit more. He’s done well. He’s a good wide receiver and obviously an excellent runner with the ball.”

On Corey Robinson
“Corey Robinson was SEC Lineman of the Week. We haven’t had one of those in awhile. Corey had his best game. Coach Elliott and all of us agreed that Corey probably had his best game as a Gamecock. He was a captain last week too. He’s really come a long way from his first couple years here at Carolina.”