Steve Spurrier fulfilled his media obligation Tuesday, talking to local reporters for 20 minutes about this weekend’s upcoming game against the preseason East favorite.
I’m guessing Spurrier went back to his office afterward and shut the door. You see, it’s ‘Georgia Week’ and he didn’t seem all that thrilled. This season, still in the infant stages, hasn’t been an enjoyable one for the Head Ball Coach.
With the dust finally settled following South Carolina’s first home loss to Kentucky since 1999, Spurrier reiterated points about his team that he mentioned after the Gamecocks’ close win over North Carolina on Sept. 3 — need to improve, become more disciplined, stop the stupid errors.
The pep in his step evaporated last season after many blown fourth-quarter leads and I’m sure Saturday’s loss was excruciatingly tough to stomach (though he was a good sport about it post-game).
Here’s some of the other ‘highlights’ from Spurrier’s less-than-enthusiastic briefing:
On matchup Saturday vs. Georgia:
“We feel like we have a chance to match up with Georgia. Vandy played them pretty tough last week. Vandy stayed on the field, made some fourth downs and sort of played keep away with the ball and actually had a chance late in the fourth quarter. Georgia is like always, fast on defense, run the ball extremely well. They don’t throw the ball quite as much as they did back when (Aaron) Murray was there, but they’re still very capable. Georgia has outstanding receivers and they’re always in the top-10 recruiting. They’ve got tremendous athletes across the board, so we’ve got to go play a little bit better than we’ve been playing and play without some careless mistakes that we played with last week.”
On Perry Orth’s confidence since being named QB1:
“We’ve just had one practice since Perry was the starter, so I guess he’s about the same. He played pretty well the other night (Saturday). Obviously, the last play was a careless interception that really hurt us. Other than that, he did a nice job throwing the ball around, handing it off.”
Spurrier on Perry Orth: He is a mature young man who throws a nice pass…He’s very capable.” #Gamecocks
— Willie Smith (@willie_t_smith) September 15, 2015
Thoughts on walk-on players vs. scholarship:
Spurrier: “Our scholarship guys maybe have not been the hit we thought they were going to be.” Walk-ons have earned their shot. — David Cloninger (@DCTheState) September 15, 2015
Spurrier: Lot of the scholarship guys can still be good players. “But yeah, we’ve missed on some guys. No question about it.”
— David Cloninger (@DCTheState) September 15, 2015
On success vs. Georgia:
“We’ve just been fortunate to get some breaks here and there. We’ve played them really well here at home. We’ve won a couple over there. Who knows why.”
On Lorenzo Nunez:
Spurrier: “Lorenzo Nunez is a good player, a good runner, a good passer. We have to use him somewhere along the line.” — TheBigSpur.com (@TheBigSpur247) September 15, 2015
On Shon Carson’s move ahead of David Williams:
Shon Carson now 2nd on the depth chart at RB. “He deserves to be second. He had some nice runs last week.” -Coach Spurrier
— TheBigSpur.com (@TheBigSpur247) September 15, 2015
