Nov. 4, 2015

The University of South Carolina football practiced for about two hours Wednesday afternoon at the new Gamecock Park practice facility.

The Gamecocks (3-5, 1-5 SEC) will travel to Knoxville this weekend to take on the Tennessee Volunteers (4-4, 2-3 SEC) in another SEC Eastern Division showdown. Game time is set for 4 p.m. Eastern and the game will be televised on the SEC Network with Tom Hart, Andre Ware and Laura Rutledge providing the commentary.

The Carolina offense has a tough task at hand facing another solid SEC defense. “They’re fast. They can run. That’s the first thing that jumps out at you,” said offensive coordinator G.A. Mangus of the Tennessee defense. “They’re aggressive. They rush the passer. They play a lot of different guys and seem to be playing better here of late.”

Mangus expects to have a healthier Lorenzo Nuñez available moving forward. “He can do a lot of things,” Mangus said of his freshman quarterback. “He’s a really good athlete. He’s going to play more and more now that he’s getting back healthy. He’s getting a lot of reps at quarterback this week.”

Mangus believes that Nuñez has benefited from watching Perry Orth play. “It’s probably been good for him,” noted Mangus. “When you’re a true freshman like that to sit back and watch Perry as somebody that knows what he is doing and knows so much about the offense, sometimes it’s good to kind of sit back and watch that and realize that maybe he doesn’t know as much as he thought he did and these older guys are good guys he can learn from. I think he’s had a good few weeks of watching that and a good week of practice this week. He’ll be ready to go.”

Kevin Crosby has been able to see a little bit more of the field lately as an H-back in the Carolina attack. “He’s a good athlete,” said Mangus. “He’s finding a niche. We hadn’t been using much of an H-back like we did with Patrick DiMarco. He’s got that ability. (Using him in the H-back role) gives him a chance to be a good player. He’s a talented kid and he’s a tough kid.”

The Gamecocks will return to the practice fields on Thursday afternoon.