Sept. 22, 2015

Head Ball Coach Steve Spurrier

Opening statement
Central Florida sort of brings back a lot of memories for me; our first game that I coached here was against UCF in ’05. They were coming off a bad year the year before. I don’t think they won a game the year before, but they had a pretty good team. We sold out the place and I still remember the bus coming to the stadium, our fans right there with the fingers in the air trying to buy tickets to see South Carolina football and the stadium was packed before kickoff. That brings back some fond memories certainly we have as good of football fans as anybody in the country. Lorenzo Nunez is going to start the game. We’re going to let him go play. Certainly we believe the other quarterbacks will probably play some in the course of the game. Perry Orth, maybe even Michael Scarnecchia, just depends how the game goes. Lorenzo gives us maybe a little spark we need offensively and certainly we need some sparks on defense. I think we’ll have at least maybe three or four new starters on defense. I’ll let the defensive coaches talk about that later in the week, but we’ll have a new quarterback starting the game. I think he’s the first true freshman quarterback as a coach I’ve ever started, but that’s just where we are right now and we got a true freshman center. Zach Bailey is going to start the game there. So that’s just the way it has happened right now going into the fourth game of the year of the 2015 season. Central Florida is a team that has lost two one-point games. They’ve had some heartbreakers. Their defense is very good. Their offense has struggled. Their quarterback got hurt early, but their defensive line is one of the best we’ll face. They’re big strong guys that can run, hustle, and we have to really play well to beat these guys. They’re going to be fired up to knock us off and we have to really be ready to play. We’re going to try to play our best game of the year thus far.

on comfort with defensive scheme
We’re trying to disguise and not disguising very well right now. Obviously we’re struggling on defense. I think we need to do a few new scheme things and obviously we have to play our assignments better also. We all have to coach better and I think our players need to play better certainly. We need to do more than just line up and say ‘here we are, what are you going to do?’ I think they’re told to disguise more up and back but we didn’t quite do it the last game.

On decision to go with Nunez and how he fared on Saturday
He did OK. He made some nice runs and actually hit a few passes. He gives us a spark in there running the ball. We need to probably spread out a little bit and run and get him out of the pocket and throw, but there could be a place for Perry and Michael Scarnecchia hasn’t played yet either. He’s looked pretty good in practice so he’s probably going to deserve a shot somewhere down the road here. That’s just where we are, but let’s give Lorenzo a chance to go out and play a game and see how he does.

On job of UCF head coach George O’Leary
He’s done an excellent job there when they finished fourth or fifth in the nation we were the only team that beat them. They had a drop off somehow, had a bunch of guys hurt but I guess you go through that sometimes but he’s done an excellent job there at Central Florida.

On Nunez progress as passer
I think he’s still working on it, trying to improve as a passer. We don’t know until we let him go out there and actually start throwing it around. We’ll have a little bit of a limited part of the offense which we should but he’s very capable of throwing the ball he just hasn’t done it yet. We have to find out how we all play. We’ve got a lot of players that practice very well then all of a sudden they’re involved in a game and they don’t quite play as well as they practice. So as coaches you have to find out those answers.

On Connor Mitch’s health and possibility of returning as starter
We’ll worry about that when he comes back. His health is much better. He was out watching practice last night. He’s still got his arm in a sling and it is his right arm so I’m sure he’s out several more weeks but health wise he’s doing well. The bad bruise he had seems to be healing well.

On Wilds’ injury and Williams’ availability
Brandon has a bruised rib. Whether or not he’ll play I guess we’ll find out Friday or Saturday. Shon Carson probably scheduled to start. We’re not giving up on David. He has struggled; he fell behind the line that play last week, but he’s a good back. We just can’t get him going. Hopefully he gets in there and gets going this week.

On how teams differ from last meeting 2 years ago
Certainly that was one of their best teams ever down there. [Blake] Bortles and the wide receiver down there are both starting in the NFL now so that was a very good team and their defense was good too. We had a good team obviously back then. Connor Shaw actually got hurt in the first quarter of that game. Dylan [Thompson] came in and played about three quarters so it was an interesting game. We had a good lead there and we fumbled on the 3-yard line on first down. Mike [Davis] ran in there and they got a helmet on the ball and fumbled. Fortunately enough we got the onside kick and we were able to take a knee and put it away. It was a good win at the time and I didn’t know that they would not lose another one after that. They had a heck of a year.

On defense’s chance to build confidence this week
Hopefully our defense can stop this team but until we do we don’t assume anything. We’re hoping to really play our best game and we’ll find out if we’re capable so it should be a huge challenge to our players to see if we can go out there and really look like a good team this week

On managing the psyche
I don’t think I’ve screamed and yelled at too many of them too much. A lot of players get mad at themselves if we’re not playing at a high level. We’ll encourage them if they want to really play well. I still think we’re very capable of turning this thing positive but we’re not very positive right now. But it’s a new start. We have to put behind us the beating we took last week and try to learn from it.

On how Nunez compares to other QBs he’s coached
He is different from other quarterbacks I have coached over the years although Connor Shaw certainly was a good runner and Lorenzo is an excellent runner. His passing we don’t know yet. At times it looks very good but he’s going to learn where everyone is going and so forth. It’s time to let him play. He should play a lot this year barring injury and still Perry and Michael need to play some also. I don’t know that we’re a one quarterback team completely but if he goes out there and plays very well and takes care of the ball we could be a one quarterback team.