Spurticus' Fall Practice Reports 2005

[Spurticus]

Went out to the practice field today on my lunchbreak. Wish I had good news to report, but unfortunately, I don't. Spurrier wasn't real happy, and the fans that were there weren't enthused with the performance either. I got there about midway through and the starting offensive unit was on the near field running skeleton plays ( 7 on 7 ). Spurrier was letting each of the 3 QB's run about 3 plays each. Blake was misfiring alot. Antonio didn't look any better, and Cade threw one interception, and had a couple more that should have been. The last series of 7/7, Blake was in, and overthrew Travis Lee on a curl route. Spurrier sent the offensive unit over to the far field after that and ran full team plays ( 11 on 11 ) using the down markers. Blake never got back on the field. Spurrier had Heffner running the offense, but hate to report that he was not any sharper than Mitchell. He did have one nice completion of about 30 yards to Pops. Frisby made a nice grab on the play, of a ball thrown a little high and behind him.

The good news is that the running game still looked solid. Dacus had a real good run that would have been a long one for a TD in a game. Wallace continues his good running, and Mike Davis and Taylor Rank ( who looks to have made the depth chart going into the fall), had some nice runs as well. Ascraft broke off one good run outside, but was quite after that.

Travis Lee caught a couple of passes beating his man, but there were a few others that he should have caught, that Blake and Cade overthrew to him. He still looks like he's going to be a solid receiver this season, and in my opinion, should be one of the starters.

Another thing to watch this season, that we haven't seen here before. Spurrier had Bobby Wallace running deep pass routes out of the backfield. He had his man beat by at least two steps both times, but Heffner over threw him both times. That was a nice looking play developing, and I hope we can get the timing down on it.

The defense continues to impress everybody. Our Linebackers are getting better every practice, and I can't add anything else to what's already been said about our Defensive Backs. Ty Irving had a good practice. He intercepted the ball from Cade Thompson, and closed QUICKLY on a couple more to break them up. He was one of the guys that had a good Spring, and I was wanting to see how he developed this fall. Unfortunately, he was one of the guys who got caught in a car that had some drugs hidden, and has some legal issues to contend with because of it, but if he keeps his head in the right place, Ty will see lots of action this season.

The offensive line was running some pass rush defending when I first got to the field. The coaches had the front D line, and our O line matched up, and he let some linebackers come on blitzes now and then to see if the Offensive line could pick them up and block them. The best at these drills looked to be Jabari Leavy, and William Brown. They were holding their man up quite a few times, and picked up the linebackers quickly. Eric Stroman got whipped a couple of times and Coach Hunt was not impressed. I didn't see NaShan Goddard over there today. I don't know if I overlooked him, or if he miss practice today because of some reason. When he's on the field, you can tell a difference in the performance of the line.

Well, that's what I saw this morning. I hope it was just an off day for the guys, and we get back to some more consistant practices. Our Quarterbacks are going to need to get a lot more consistant before going into the SEC part of our schedule. I think Spurrier will have them ready by game one, but they need to show they can play solid on a steady basis. The last couple of practices have been anything but that.

[Spurticus]

Well Gamecock fans, there was some better news to report today from the field. The Offense looked somewhat better than in the previous two day, but there were still some miscues that shouldn't be there. Big question for today was "Where was Antonio Heffner"? I was there for only the second hour, and he never took a snap. It was Cade and Blake running the offense the whole time. Don't know if he got injuried earlier before I got there, he was sick, being disiplined or what, but I didn't see him run anything on Offense. If it was none of the above, Spurrier may have moved Cade ahead of him for the two spot on the depth chart. Don't know?? I think the offense looked better, because they were running mainly short timming routes. ( Slants, out routes, hooks and circle routes out of the backfield) against the first unit linebackers and DB's during 7 on 7, and the QB's looked a little sharper than yesterday. This may have been a move by Spurrier to give his QB's some confidence. If so, it worked as they looked a little better when they connected. However, there's an even brighter spot to this comment. The starting Defensive backfield (even though the offense looked better than yesterday) still dominated the drill. There were a couple of passes thrown on the money that were broken up by our DB's. Ko, and Johnathan Joseph were all over their man today. A couple of times, Blake had to tuck the ball and run because there was nothing open. NOTHING ! On one play, they ran a quick slant to Kenny McKinley. He took off from the right side and from where I was standing looked like he was wide open. Blake threw to him, and it looked like it was going to be a nice gain, but out of nowhere, Lance Lauery stretched out, and extented his left arm into the passing lane, and pulled down a one handed INT!! That was an awesome display of closing to the ball! Of the ones that were completed, it looked like Svelle was the primary hook up. He caught 3 or 4 for some short gainers, as did Travis Lee and Michel Flint. Dacus caught one over the middle on a curl route, and Taylor Rank took a circle route on the left sideline and stayed in bounds for a nice reception.

As he did yeserday, Spurrier took the team over to the far field for the last 20 minutes of practice and ran scrimage ( 11 on 11). It was hard to make out anything from where I was, so I moved outside the fence to where the storage shed was, and caught some of the scrimmage. Someone asked yesterday about Gurminder Thind. He worked some today with the starting offensive unit, and looked like he was doing alright. The first unit today was Fran Person and Center, Eric Stroman and William Brown at guards, and NaShan Goddard and Thind at the tackle position. I also saw a lot of Jermon Merrideth in at the tackle spot. It looks like Robert Pavlovic will see a lot of action at tight end on running plays, but Andy Boyd and Johnathan Hannah split time there on passing downs. Blake hooked up with Travis Lee on a 30+ yard route that was well covered, but Travis was able to leap with Ty Irving and come down with the ball. He also hit Hannah on a 20 yard out play that looked well.
Didn't see much of Bobby Wallace today, or Mike Davis for that matter. Taylor Rank made a couple of runs and lookes to be improving daily.

Someone posted a thread yesterday about early predictions for UGA, Clemson and USC's first game. They picked us a 18 point favorites over UCF and the score was something like 32 to 14. I replied to that saying I think it will be a much wider margin, and I wouldn't be supprised if we shut them out. The more I see this defensive unit play, I'll stand by that statement. If UCF puts a point on the board against our starting unit I'll be shocked. If they score at all before Spurrier puts the practice squad in, in the forth quarter, I'll be greatly supprised. This defense is FOR REAL. I think we can be ranked in the top 2 or 3 in the SEC, and I can see us as the best in the conference before the end of the season. Wish I had as high hopes for our offensive unit as well. We'll get better as we go along, but I don't see us cracking the top 5-7 in the conference. If our running backs stay healthy, the kids will learn a lot and get better by the end of the year, but it'll be a painful lesson for us to watch. I believe our running game will be the offensive threat this year. Looks that way right now anyway.

Later guys.

[Lil Jerry Seinfeld]

Yellow Jerseys

Murdock
Whiteside
Burgess
Bennett
Sidney Rice was not at practice (at least I didn't see him)


The team started with running drills. Antonio Heffner was handing off. At the same time, Mitchell, Thompson and Nichols were working with the wide receivers and DBs on passing drills. Blake Mitchell was looking good today and was completing everything that wasn’t dropped by the WR. He was hitting on about everything and was beginning to throw some longer passes. He looks like he is settling in.


All I can say about our DBs is they can hit HARD!


The wide receivers who participated today were:
Clark
Flint
Lee
McKinley
Murdock
Newton
Thomas
Williams

They also worked on some punting. They had moved to the far side of the field when I left and I couldn’t really see.

I don't know yet if I am going back tonight.

[Spurticus]

Before I start, Need to tell y'all this. There was some idiotic Tater fan riding aound the practice field in a white ( looked like a ) Tarus. He had a Tiger paw decal in his back window, and an air horn that played Hold that Tiger. He made about two or three passes aound the field doing that. Spurrier paid attention to it...... Enough said.

Nice Summery LJ. Just got back in. There was some good news this morning for the offense. The 7 on 7 looked a little better today, but as Jerry said, our first unit DB's and LB's are going to make anybody look bad. The shorter routes that were completed had no chance of going anywhere, as KO, Tremaine Tyler, Brandon Issac and Ty Irving were on them shortly after the catch was made. On the medium range passes, we still need to work on our timming a bit as Blake and Kris Clark just missed hooking up on a couple of nice routes. Cade throws a nice ball, and has a strong arm. You can tell he's a little confused with the routes and holds on to the ball too long, but once he gets this under control, Cade will be a good looking QB.
Most of the 7/7 again today was primarily shorter routes, with a few fades and medium routes now and then. Kris Clark had a very good day today. He caught several passes across the middle short, and one or two for around 15+ yards that were tough catches. It was good seeing OJ back in too. He took a couple of passes of about 5-7 yards on out routes, and seems to be OK. He's still in the yellow jersey, so there's no hard contact with him right now. Carlos Thomas had a couple of dropped balls that should not have been, but made a nice catch on a deep post route of around 25 yards on a poorly executed play by Blake. Carlos was open early, and Blake held on to the ball too long. He finally picked Carlos up, and lofted the ball with a little too much air under it. Brandon Issac closed on it, but Carlos was able to position his body in front of Brandon, and was able to save the play with a nice grab.

The team went over to the far field, and a few fans followed outside the fence for a better view. ( I was able to get a decent area today.) Kris Clark made another couple of solid catches, but you could tell the offense is just way behind the defense. When they get to the 11 on 11, the Defense is just all over our guys in the back field. Stanley Doughty can't be handled by anyone we have on the O line, and Chris Tucker was spending a lot of time in the offensive side of the line.

The starting offensive ine today was: Chris White (running center) James Thompson and William Brown at Guard. and NaShan Goddard and Jabari Levey at the Tackle position. Pavlovic, Boyd and Hannah all rotated at one side at TE, and Aaron Shaw saw a few snaps as well. Some of the better plays during the 11 on 11 was a nice break away run off right tackle by Taylor Rank who continues to get stronger. And a nice throw and grab of about 20 yards on a deep sideline route from Antonio Heffner to Kenny McKinley.

The best news of the day was toward the end of practice. The Goal line offense and Defense lined up for about 10-15 plays and the offense got the better of the defense for the first time this week. First play, they lined up in a power set, with Turman at FB and Davis behind him. Blake faked to Davis on a dive and hit Andy Boyd in the right corner for a TD. The Defense and fans were totally fooled on the play. THE GOOD NEWS THOUGH IS THIS!! Everyone has seen Wallace run in the open, and he broke a couple more inside during the 11/11 drills, but Wallace is a strong young man as well. He took a couple of handoffs into the line during the goal line plays and powered his way into the endzone both times. Guys, I ( and the rest of the people around me ) were wiping our eyes to see if we had actually seen what happened. This guy is a prize recuit for the Gamecocks this year. BTW, Spurrier even ran a play where Dacus took the handoff from a halfback position. and moved right, and he tossed a pass to Pavlovic for a TD !! .... I repete guys, we'll be fun to watch this year, win, loose or draw. .... More tonight after the evening workout.

[Spurticus]

The team practiced in shorts and helments tonight. Not much to report as Spurrier mainly ran position drills for about 3/4 of the night. Watched the QB's and Wide Outs work mainly. As has been the routine pretty much the whole week, all the guys seemed to be in good form running the one on ones. Blake and Cade were throwing mainly deep routes and hitting the recievers in stride. Afterwards, they ran about 10 minutes of throwing again to the running backs, on Check down, and Circle routes. And again, Bobby Wallace looked very good doing this as well. Just another skill to add to his impressive list. Not only does he have good hands, but he knows what to do after he catches the football. I'm almost tempted to write a letter to Spurrier to try him out at Quarterback.

After the position drills were over, they moved to the far field, and my veiw was very obstructed, but was able to make out most of what was going on. Couldn't make out who was playing where on the lines tonight as far as first and second units. Nothing good to report here. Once the QB's got under center for the 11 on 11, we just seemed to loose the timing, and sharpness. Spurrier let Blake run most of the reps, and kept running mostly deep routes to Carlos, OJ and Travis. Our guys were getting behind the backs on about 50% of the time, but Blake was just overthrowing them by a foot or so. When they changed up and went to some shorter routes, he looked better connecting to Hannah, and McKinley, but even some of these were off target. Several times, it seemed that either Blake was misreading, or the recievers were running the wrong routes, because the balls were thrown well behind receivers who were running slants and curls towards the middle of the field.

There were a couple of connections that went for some big pickups. Blake finally connected with with Carlos Thompson on the left sideline for one deep pass that looked good, and Cade threw one for about 45 to OJ Murdock that would have put six on the board. Blake hit Hannah a couple of times on Drag routes ( something our defense has gotten beat to death on for the past few years), and threw a nice strike on an out route for a pickup of 15 to McKinley.

We're still not hitting on all eight right now, but the misses are getting closer. Hope that's a good sign. I'm anxious to see the scrimage this weekend. This spring the offense kicked it up a notch when they got in the stadium in front of a crowd, and they looked good again in the Garnet and Black game. I'm convinced at this point that our running game is good enough to keep us in some games, but if our Quarterbacks don't zero in soon, we're going to see pretty much the same thing we've seen the past couple of years. Our opponents are going to load up on the front, and dare us to beat them throwing the ball. So far, we haven't shown that we can spread the field with any consistancy. We have to get something going in the air to open it up for these talented Freshmen running backs. If not, these youngsters are going to be in for a beating their first year in the college ranks. ........... Later guys.

[Spurticus]

You're the man, I don't know what I would do without your updates.

What time is the scrimage Sat? Is it open to the public, and if so, where will it be...the practice field or the stadium?

Unless they've changed the schedule, they will scrimmage Saturday in the stadium from 4:15to 6:30. It is open to the public.

The rest of the open schedule goes:
Today 8/11: Morning practice only 9am - 11:15am
Friday 8/12: Another of the two-a-days 9am - 11:15am & 4:15pm - 6:30pm
Saturday 8/13:Scrimmage at Williams Brice 4:15 - 6:30pm ( this is open to the public)
Sunday 8/14: Fan Appreciation Day at the Colonial Center 1pm - 3pm
Monday 8/15: Afternoon practice 4;15pm - 6:30pm
Tuesday 8/16: last of the two-a-days 9:am - 11:15am & 4:15pm - 6:30pm
Wednesday 8/17: morning practice 9am - 11:15am
Following this, all practices will be in the Stadium and closed to the public.

[Spurticus]

I have good news, and I have bad news. THE GOOD NEWS? All of our quarterbacks looked better throwing the ball this morning. THE BAD NEWS? None of our receivers could catch the ball!! I got to the field at 10:15am and didn't see a completed pass until around 10:35am. Heffner was up during the 7 on 7 drills when I got there, and throwing good. I saw two well thrown passes dropped by Carlos Thomas. One pass dropped by OJ Murdock that hit him in the hands. Two passes dropped by McKinley from Cade Thompson, and one from Blake to Svelle that hit him square between the 1 & 3. This really happened. The first pass I saw completed was from Blake to Noah Whiteside, and Steve Spurrier turned to the crowd and yelled. We finally completed a pass, Y'all give them a big hand. ( the crowd obliged ). After that, the recievers must have gotten imbarassed somewhat, because there was a string of about 6-8 that hit the mark and stuck. Blake threw some nice slant routes to OJ, and McKinley. He threw a good stike to Wallace on a circle route from the backfield, and the best one was a 20 yard post route to Michel Flint in the end zone. Then the drops came back. Taylor Rank dropped a circle route pass from Cade, and Carlos dropped another one over the middle from Cade as well.

At that point the team went over to the far field, to run 11 on 11. The quarterbacks looked bad when running against the first unit defense, although there were a couple of nice throws on short "Out" from Blake to Carlos Thomas, and Andy Boyd. Spurrier let Cade Thompson run about 90% of the 11 on 11 today. Cade did well on the shorter routes, but still has trouble ( as all of our QB's do ) on the deeper stuff. None of our guys can get behind our starting unit DB's ( Ko Simpson and Johnathan Joseph ), but they can at times beat our second unit guys, but we have yet to connect when this happens. It was the same story today with all three of the QB's. I'm sure that'll be the focus of practice for the next week or two, and I'm sure we'll start hooking up on some of these. ...... let's hope so.

The first unit on the offense line today was mainly: Chris White (60) at center. James Thompson (67) and William Brown (71) at Guards, and NaShan Goddard (70) and Jabari Levey (78) at the Tackles. Again Andy Boyd and Robert Pavlovic at Tight End, with Jonathan Hannah or Boyd in when they throw.
The Defense was being switched a lot, so the starting units were hard to pin down. Nix was mixing up the Linebacking corp on almost every play. Dakota Walker would play a couple of reps at the DE spot, then move back and play Middle Linebacker on a down or two. I saw a lot of Mike West, who looks very good at the Spur or Bandit position. and De'Adrian Coley was in a good bit today.
Marque Hall looked good this morning stuffing a couple of running plays up the middle for no gain. But couldn't get a hold of Bobby Wallace on another play, who was able to get around him for a nice 15+ yard pick up. The 11 on 11 looked a little better today, but much work is still needed. The team ended the practice with the Crunches and pushup drill they had done the last couple of days. ( man that looks painfull).

OJ Murdock is back in the Garnet jersey, so he's back at full speed. Terrell Davis, Fred Bennett, Curtis Rice ( cast on right leg) and Jeremy Burgess still have the yellow jersey, and with the exception of Rice, run mostly position drills and nothing else. Whiteside is still wearing yellow, but seems to be recovering nicely, and is running/catching well. Still no contact on him right now. ........ That's all until tomorrow guys.

[Spurticus]

MUCH MUCH BETTER day today. 7 on 7's looked sharp. Antonio Heffner may have had his best full practice since mid Spring. AH didn't seem to be trying to rifle the ball to the receivers and had several completed passes that were covered well. Blake was misfiring some doing these drills, but 2 or 3 were because of receivers running the wrong routes, and a couple that still were dropped. Spurrier Jr. was very active this morning, working with the WR's. A nice addition to the practice was that Spurrier had on a wireless mic and was patched in to a PA speaker on the sideline. He was actually talking to the QB's during and after the play. He would guide them to a certain route, or tell them what kind of coverage they were looking at, and where they should have thrown, if they were off target. ** personal note here: The Receivers didn't drop too many passes today! I'm guessing that "extra work" that Spurrier mentioned the WRs did yesterday got the message across.
After running 7 0n 7, the coaches moved to the 8 yard line and let the QB's run about 5 reps each. Again Antonio looked sharp completing all his throws, and one to Mike Davis for a TD. Blake hit a couple underneath on shorter routes, and just overthrew OJ Murdock on a corner route for the touch, But came right back to find Michel Flint on a short ( skinny) post route for a TD. Cade still looks a little confused picking up the open receiver, and if the primary man is not there, he holds the ball too long. This will improve over time. Looks like Spurrier saw something we didn't when he named AH the number 2 man this week. ** something to add here as well. Tuesday in the evening practice, when the team was in helmets and shorts only, and running drills; John Thompson and Tyron Nix had the DB's and Linebackers practice knocking the ball out of players hands from the front and from behind. They were teaching them to come over the shoulder and drive the ball down and out of the arms. Well, someone paid attention. On one play, Blake hit Carson Askins with a nice out for about 10 yards. Carson spun and looked like he was going to go for some good yardage. Dakota Walker (playing LB) was the defender, and looked like Carson spun away from him. DW went over his shoulder when he turned upfield and swiped the ball away from him cleanly !! Just another example of what this defense has in store for us this year.

When the team went over to the far field for 11 on 11, Spurrier had the first unit offense go against the second unit defense. Good news here today too guys. Remember yesterday I said the misses on the deeper routes were getting closer. Antonio hooked up with Noah Whiteside for a 60 yarder for what would have been a TD. Noah beat Ty Irving by about 3 steps and AH hit him in stride. About 40 yards in the air! AND, Blake got up facing the first unit defense. He hit several good passes across the middle, and on one play, found Kris Clark running with Ko. Blake put the ball over KC's shoulder for a hookup of about 30! Mike Davis broke off a long run after cutting back to his right, after starting off tackle. Gained about 20 on the play. Wallace didn't run that much, but was used mainly as another receiver on Swing routes, and safety valves. All with good results. Big question today though was: Where was Syvelle Newton, and Carlos Thomas? they weren't on the field at all. I'll check the post practice interviews and hope it's nothing serious. ( fingers crossed).
First unit offense is pretty much the same squad as it was all this week. White and center, Thompson and Brown and Guard, and Goddard and levey at tackle. (and this unit is seeing pretty much all the reps). However, William Brown moved over to center a good bit today, and Thomas Coleman and Jamon Merrideth saw some reps late in practice.
The first unit defense today was Chris Tucker and Charles Silas playing at DE, Scott Morgan (usually a LB) was lined up at DT with Doughty this morning. Hurley, Laury and West were the Linebackers. Jonathan Joseph and Tremaine Tyler at the Corners and Ko and Isaac at the safeties. Seeing a lot of action today though were Dakota walker as an outside linebacker, DeAdrian Coley at DE, Terrell Davis ( listed as LB0 was playing Safety a lot, with Ty Irving, and Jeremey Ware and Stoney Woodson playing Corners. I also noticed Cris Hampton running a lot with Ko Simpson as one of the safety's.

Best practice of the week so far. Hope it carries over to tonight's workout. ......... Later guys.

[Spurticus]

Just got in from the night workout. Like Wednesday's practice, the second of the two a days was in shorts and helments. ( no pads ). Not a whole lot to report as far as good individual performances, as it looked like the coaches were keeping it all vanillia, in order to have the team ready for the Scrimmage tomorrow. They broke into squads to do position drills, and the defensive front guys, were doing a fumble recovery drill near the fans on the sidelines. On about the third dive for the ball, one of the guys hurt his leg, and had to be carted off the field. It looked like Dakota Walker, but a few minutes later, when the squads broke up, into smaller groups, Dakota was working with the linebackers, so I'm thinking the injuried player was Matt Rysor. Don't know for sure. The guy had his jersey tied in the back and the number looked like 99. A lot of people on the sidelines were fooled. If anyone's heard anything on it. Please let me know. Also, there was somthing that didn't seem right this morning that I couldn't put my finger on, and tonight I realized what it was. I missed Taylor Rank's number during the morning workout. He was there in a yellow jersey tonight, but didn't do any drills. Don't know the extent of his injury, but it didn't appear to be anything serious. He was running and helping the team run some drills, so he shouldn't be out to long I would guess.
Sidney Rice was with the team tonight. He was in the yellow jersey, and like Taylor, didn't run any drills with the team. Can't wait to see him start working out again, We need him in the lineup.

The guys did only a half hour or so of position drills, the the last hour was over on the far field to run some 11 on 11, but they were only at half / 3/4 speed. All the quarterbacks were thowing well over there. Cade had a good night. He completed most of his passes, and hooked up on back to back deep routes to Noah Whiteside who made a fantastic one hand grab stretching out with his left hand. The play went for about 40 yards up the sidelines. Following that one, Cade hooked up with Travis Lee for about 50+ who out jumped Stoney Woodson for the reception. I don't know who Spurrier will have in the starting lineup this fall on offense, but in my opinion, Travis has earned the right to be one of the starting receivers. He has improved 200% this summer, and is still the most consistant of the receivers. Blake and Antonio also had solid performances tonight as well. Antonio shared the wealth hitting pretty much the whole lineup of receivers. Mostly on shorter and medium range routes. He just missed on a long pass to OJ on a deep post route. Blake and Travis connected for 30+ on a nice post corner route.

In closing, The new Offensive lineman who committed from Dutch Fork High School, Garrett Anderson was at practice tonight. He is a big youngster. Very impressive looking lineman. And he's still growing. .......... later guys.

[Spurticus]

Well, inconsistancy continues. The whole team started out looking very good during the position drills. The coaches were stepping it up a little bit, letting the guys hit a little bit tonight. The defensive line / linebackers ran a scaled down version of the Oklahoma drill. They took turns being the ball carrier, and the defender. The defender would start against the sideline, and the ball carrier had a lane marked off, approxamately 10 yards wide. They lined up about 10 yards from the defender, and tried to make it to the sideline. Of course, the defender had to stop him. Dustin Lindsey, Ricardo Hurley and Mike West had the crowd clapping. These three delivered some bone jarring hits. Ricardo went one on one with Ryan Brown, and MAN ! The crunch must have been heard at the fairgrouds. Another impressive looking drill with some attitude, was the fullbacks blocking on a simulated blitz. Jared Jeffcoat was very impressive, and Bobby Wallace hit Oris Lambert near the belt buckle and laid him down hard. Jered had Madre Hill yelling praises pretty much the whole practice.

One bit of good news. Noah Whiteside was back in the Garnet Jersey tonight, and really looked great. He and Syvelle Newton were probably the best two offensive performers on the field tonight. The Quarterbacks all did outstanding jobs during the one on ones. Spurrier lined the QBs and WR's on the 12 and ran scoring routes ( skinny posts, fades, corner routes ... ) and Blake started out looking REAl good. He threw about 5-7 in a row that all stuck. Antonio looked good at this also, but he threw behind a man or two. But also made some really tough throws in the corner. One in particular to Syvelle who was well covered by Jonathan Joseph. Heffner tossed it high to the very edge of the left back corner, and Syvelle used his body to block off JJ, while stretching to take the ball, with one leg dead in the corner. It was a nice toss and and excellent catch by Newton, who is starting to really impress me as being a leader among the receiving corp.

They lined up to run the skeleton drills, and Blake started out looking very confident, hitting a couple of nice passes of around 15-20 yards over the middle. One to Noah, and another nice bullet to Carlos Thomas. But then he started to misfire, and lost it completely. He overthrew some wide open receivers, and threw an interception to Ty Irving when his man, Travis Lee had gotten behind him. Spurrier yanked him and put Heffner in , and Heffner started off by firing a bullet to Kris Clark and hit a couple of Drag (underneath routes) to Bobby Wallace. But then Heffner started missing, and underthrew a couple or guys. Cade got in and hit about 50% of the passes he threw, one to McKinley that went between Lance Laury and JJ for a nice completion, but he misread a route to LeMariel Williams who had beaten his man, and the ball ended up in the hands of Stoney Woodson for a pick. Spurrier was not real happy at this point.

The team lined up on the near field for the last part of the day running 11 on 11, and as in the 7/7, Blake hit a couple of nice completions to start off, and looked very confident, but it didn't last more than 4-5 plays, and he hung one up to OJ that was knocked down by JJ, and was almost picked. When the team lined up for the next play, Spurrier yelled out the audible over the PA and you could tell he was PO'd. Blake went back and just seemed lost and tossed the ball towards Syvelle who was covered too well, but the ball fell about 5 yards short of him to Lance Laury. Blake was yanked again, and Heffner was brought on, and it didn't get any better. Except for a couple of really nice adjustment catches by OJ Murdock and Travis Lee, Heffner didn't throw any better. The last three plays of the night was an illegal procedure by our right guard. The ball was snapped over the head of Heffner on a shotgun set, and the last play, again on a shotgun set, the ball hit Heffner in the hands and he fumbled it. Spurrier had seen enough, and took the team over to the far sidelines, and when I left they were running Sprints the width of the field.

On a good note, While the Quarterbacks were throwing the endzone routes on the near field, I watched the first unit offensive line, working against our starting defensive unit on strictly running plays over on the far field. Mike Davis and Bobby Wallace were running VERY WELL tonight, and our starting O line was opening some holes for them. Once again, we need to stay healthy here, and hope the second unit can grow up in the next 4-6 weeks. More in the morning guys. Goodnight.

[Spurticus]

I'm worried about our QB situation...I know they're gonna improve once the year goes on, but what about our first 4 games or so...those first 4 are very important...2-2, 3-1 or ever 4-0 are very different (i know, very obvious, you know what i mean though) I just dont want to start off 2-2...it's gonna be tough goin' into SEC play with a 2-2 record and already have two losses in the SEC...guess what I'm gettin' at is I hope the quarterbacks can step up their play once the season starts and stop throwin' these wayward passes...

If you go back and look at our posts / replies during Spring, and so far this summer, this is the thing I'm most affraid of this season. It's not a matter of stopping the misthrown passes, or mis read routes. Those are going to happen during the season as sure as the sun will rise this morning. We are a very young team, we are in a totally new system, and I would venture to say that no more than 3 players on the offensive side of the football this season played together at the same time on the offense last year. Right now I can only think of three Offensive starters from last years team, that will probably start this year. Goddard, Levey and Newton ( if Newton starts ). I've been saying that this team WILL make a lot of mistakes, and our opponents WILL take advantage of those mistakes. 2-2 after four games this year is a very, very strong possiblility. 6 and 5 this season looks like a good record for this team, and that should get us a bowl bid. BIG PICTURE........ This will be the future of the program, and that future is looking better all the time. OJ Murdock, Mike Davis, Bobby Wallace, Dakota Walker, Sidney Rice, Blake Mitchell, Antonio Heffner, Travis Lee, Ko Simpson etc.... These are a few guys that will be around for at least a couple more years (or more) and they are loaded with talent. One year under this system, and there's no telling how good we're going to look the next few years. The possibilities are awesome just to think about. But this season is when they learn to walk. I would say that you will also see a big difference in the team that plays those first 4 games, and the team that plays the last four games of the season. We'll grow up a lot this year, and maybe by the time Florida comes in, we'll be able to pull an upset, but that is a big if. Don't look for 4-0 from this team going into the game with Troy. If you're doing that, you're setting yourself up for a heartattack. I know, because I've done that so many times as a Gamecock fan over the years. Just watch this team and compare it to the past 3 years. Here's something to remember when you do. The past 3 years under Lou Holtz's system, the players Knew the offense, and executed it, and the best record those 3 years was 6-5, and that was because of a Come from behind victory over a mediocre Arkansas team late in the year to get that. I can see 6-5 this year, while the team is learning a whole new way of playing football. Once we learn it, these next 2 years are going to be something us Gamecocks have never seen before. A team I believe will be very capable of knocking Tennessee, Florida or Georgia out of the Top spot of this conference. Just watch em develop this season, and enjoy the building process. That way, IF they do happen to win more than 6 or 7 games, that heart attack will be a lot more fun.

[Spurticus]

Looked better this morning fellas. It was EXTREMELY hot out there today, so coach Spurrier took several short breaks to let the guys hose down. The team was at a break when I got there, but I asked a guy on the sidelines how they looked and he said they where throwing real well during the 1/1's this morning. Coach Cooper got the Kickoff and Punt team up for a while to work on kick coverages at about half speed. They did this for about 10 minutes, and then he got the Kickoff team up against the Kick Return squad for a few at full speed. There was light contact as the guys were in shells ( helment and shoulderpads) only, but this part of practice looked VERY GOOD. I've been reporting mainly on our Offense and Defense, but haven't seen much of this part of our squad this year, but this is another area we are going to be vastly improved on over the past few seasons. Maybe the most fun part of our game to watch this year. I don't know who'll be the kick return guys this fall, but Coach Cooper was using OJ Murdock, Carlos Thomas, Mike Davis and Bobby Wallace back there this morning. OJ MURDOCK!!! I hope he runs back some kickoffs this fall because he was very impressive this morning. He was 15 yards upfield before the kicking team was able to get in position to make contact with him, and on another, he would have taken it to the house, had the coach not blown the whistle to stop him. Mike Davis also had some very impressive runs on the kickoffs as well. This is going to be fun to watch this fall!

In the Skeleton drills (7 on 7), the quarterbacks started out much the way they looked last night. Blake hit a couple of short pass completions to start with, but held on to the ball to long on another play and Spurrier blew the whistle to stop it. He over threw McKinley and on his last rep, he went back to throw a short pass to OJ and the ball slipped out of his hands when his arm went backwards. Heffner threw one completion to Jonathan Hanna but it was thrown high, and except for a good stretch by JH, would have been overthrown. Antonio then overthrew and underthrew McKinley on two seperate route, where McKinley had gotten open. Cade threw a short completion to OJ Murdock, but then held on to the ball to long on the next play, and threw an interception to Fred Bennet ( who was back on the field today).

The 11 on 11 was a different story. All three of the guys looked good here, and at times looked very good. Blake ran the first unit and after a couple of nice running plays ( one each by Davis and Wallace) he found Carlos Thomas open down the right sideline for a nice completion. He threw a couple of shorter route completions to McKinley and Mike Davis. Heffner did well also hitting two straight completions, one of which found Robert Pavlovic in the center of the field for about 20+ yards. Cade underthrew a longer route to OJ Murdock but came back to complete passes to Mike Davis and McKinley.

Spurrier lined the teams up on the 20 yard line to end practice and each QB ran about 5 reps of Red Zone Offense. Blake hit OJ Murdock over the middle on a sliding catch at about the 5 yard line, and the next play, he hit Jared Cook in the hands on a corner route, but Jared Dropped the ball. Blake ran the exact same play on the next attempt and threw a nice strike to Freddie Brown ( #82) for a TD. Antonio got up and hit three short passes over the middle one to Hannah for a completion to the 5. The next play, he found Robert Pavlovic in the left corner of the endzone, but Robert cut the route off too soon, and the the pass fell incomplete wide. The last play, he had to scramble to his left to avoid getting sacked, and hit McKinley in the endzone for a TD. Spurrier put Blake back in for a couple more plays, and on his first attempt, Jared Cook ran the wrong route, and the ball was intercepted, but would have been completed had he turned outside as he should have instead of curling in. The last play of the day, Blake showed some ability to scamble, and moved to his right and completed a pass to McKinley just short of the goal line on a play resembling the Rath to Williamson play to win the Kentucky game last year. Blake was forced out of the pocket, and rolled right towards the sideline, he saw McKinley working his way across the field, and found him throwing back towards the middle of the field, for the completion.!!

Much better day of practice than last night, and a lot more to smile about afterwards. One more day to report, as tomorrow morning's practice will be the last one open to the fans. I'll let you know how it goes. .......later guys.

[Spurticus]

McKinley's name was repeated numerous times throughout your report.

Sounds to me like he must be getting the job done out there right now.

What I didn't hear was Newton's or Whiteside's name.....How did they look today?

Was the OL guard play much better today and who were the starters?

Thanks for the reports and your dedication to attending practices everyday!!!


Sully

* McKiley looked very good today, but that is pretty much how the practices have gone this season. You'll have a different receiver / running back step up each practice, and kind of overshadow the others. For instance, Jared Cook looked extremely good in the scrimmage on Saturday, and had his best performance of the summer sessions so far, but today, he dropped a couple of passes that hit him square in the hands. It was McKinley's day today.
** I did see Noah on the field this morning, but I didn't see Syvelle's number. I reported a couple of days ago that I didn't see his number that morning, and someone posted that he was doing community service for the university as part of his PTI. That may have been the case again this morning. not sure though. Noah didn't catch any that I saw, but he had a very good night last night being his first time back with the team at full speed. Noah will play a lot this year, and will (imo) be one of the starters.
***I reported last night that I watched our O Line work running plays against the first unit defense and they looked pretty good. Today they held there own, and with the exception of the couple of plays were Blake and Antonio had to scramble, they did a good job this morning. Bare in mind, we were in shells only, so not sure how much of that was good play on the O line, or lack of full contact by our D line. The guards still seem to be the weak point on the line, and today Coach hunt was using a lot of different people there. Fran Person was switching a lot between Center and Left Guard, and Kyle Bishop spent a lot of time at Right Guard. Neither of these guys usually play first team. I also noticed that Coleman ( usually a backup at Tackle was playing inside this morning). So it looks like Coach Hunt is trying different combinations right now to bolster up that position.

Hope that helps Sully

[Spurticus]

Well........ the Gamecocks saved their best open practice for the last day! With the exception of Antonio Heffner, the whole team looked very sharp today. The practice was delayed when a thunderstorm developed and some lightning strikes flashed near the stadium. But an hour later the guys where back on the field.
Some good news to start with:
The reports of Noah Whiteside's disappearance where greatly exagerated. Noah was on the field most of the night working with the first unit, and looked better than ever. Taylor Rank was back in the Garnet Jersey, and looks like he never got hurt. And the reports earlier that St. Preux had taken the starting job at guard, may have been true. Freddie was with the first unit tonight, and he was looking very good at the right guard spot.

Following position drills, the punting unit, and punt return teams worked for about 15 minutes on blocking punts, and punt coverage. Looks like Jonathan Joseph will be our punt return guy this year. All summer, when the return unit was up, he has been the sole guy back there fielding punts. Early on, he and Syvelle switched off, but looks like JJ will be the man here at the start of the year.
After the punting team finished, the guys ran skeleton drills, and Blake was ON again tonight. Except for one pass that he tried to thread the needle on to Travis Lee that got knocked down, everything he threw met it's mark. One pass to Le Morriel Williams for about 35 yards was dropped when it hit him in the hands, but it was a very nice pass by Blake.
Cade Thompson looks very impressive right now. He was throwing extremely well tonight, and if I remember correctly, there was only one of his passes, the three times he was up tonight, that didn't connect. He threw a beauty to Carlos Thomas over the middle, that sounded like a .22 rifle shot. Carlos caught it coming back towards the line of scrimmage, and made a nice grab in front of the DB's and just beyond the linebackers. Cade also threw one to Le Morriel that I was watching through the binoculars, that was very impressive. LW was running a circle route towards the right sideline. Cade went back and threw the ball while LW's back was to him. Willaims curled toward the line and turned to Cade and the ball was there. LW made the catch in stride. VERY NICE LOOKING PLAY!! As I said earlier, Antonio was just struggleing all night, and really looked lost out there this evening. During the skeleton Drills, his first three passes were, An interception by Ricardo Hurley, another interception by Ko that would have been taken to the house in a game, and he finised by overthrowing Dacus Turman on a swing pass that was about 4 feet over his head. Not sure what Heffner's problem is, but right now, he's slipping back, and Cade is gaining momentum.

After the 7 on 7, both units got up for team practice ( 11 on 11). The ball was placed on the twenty, and Spurrier told the team to run the two minute drill, no huddle, and the QB's called audibles, or got the plays from Spurrier on hand signals from the sidelines. Once again, Blake was very good. The hit his first three passes, one was to Kris Clark on a deep curl, and Kris made a nice catch on the ball that was thrown over his opposite shoulder from the way he was turned. Blake threw the ball over the outside shoulder near the sideline, as he shoud, but KC was turned towards the inside. The ball was about 5 yards from him and he turned outside, and pickes up the ball just as it dropped over his shoulder. Heffner had a couple of completions during this part of the drill, and Spurrier let him take a few more reps than Blake did, I assume to build up his confidence. One pass hit hit Jermaine Simms in the hands and he dropped it, but he came back to find Svelle Newton on a nice toss up the left sideline for about 20. He fumbled the snap on a shotgun set, and it was recoverd by Charles Silas, then he tried to throw the same route to Syvelle that he connected on earlier. It was a nice throw and catch, but was about 5 yards out of bounds. Cade saw no action during the "Hurry up" drill, I'm guessing because he hasn't had enough time to learn the audibles / hand signals.

Anyway, that was how the final practice wrapped up. It was a really good night, and the team left the fans there some nice images of what we're in store for this year. I hope I was able to relay some of those images to you guys. To close I'd like to say it's been a pleasure doing these reports for you all. Past years, I've followed the Gamecocks as a normal fan, and tried to learn the players as the season went along, and by mid season, I could almost remember the players names and numbers. I followed the recuiting this year like I've never done before, and by doing these reports for y'all, I can almost tell who all the players are by number. It's helped me get into the team a lot more than I have at any point of my 30 years as a Gamecock fan. We've lots to look forward to, and I will anxiously await the teams return to the field in two weeks when it counts. ............... Thank you all for the kind words and encouragement. GO COCKS !!

[Spurticus]

Almost forgot to mention this in the report tonight. The final play of practice, Heffner was in, and the ball was on about the 12 yard line. Spurrier called a reverse that started with a hand off to Mike Davis going left, he handed the ball to Syvelle Newton coming back to his right, and Heffner had come out of the backfield into the corner of the endzone to the right. Syvelle pumped, but Ko Simpson picked up what was going on, and was all over Heffner, Syvelle kept rolling to try to pick up another receiver, but our defense smelled it out, and no one was open. Syvelle threw the ball out of bounds.



Another thing to add. The guys were having a lot of fun tonight. On almost every play, you could hear the DB's talking smack to the receivers, and they were laughing at each other going back to the huddle. All except one play, when Justin Sorensen and Dustin Lindsey went at it after the play. There were a couple of good punches thrown, and Spurrier had to blow the whistle twice to get them to break it up. ........ Thought you'd like that.

[Spurticus]

thanks for all the updates look foward to more

I look forward to it as well jake. I looked back at some of the reports that I posted, and compared them to the season. The biggest disappointment was in the play of our defense early on. I thought from the practices I saw, that the defense would have been among the top 2 or 3 in the SEC, and among the tops in the nation. Comparing it to the season, I'm convinced that I (as well as the media) was fooled. The defense looked so good on the practice field, because the offensive line just looked that bad. Which gives me a WHOLE different level of admiration for what Blake Mitchell did this past year. The guy literally had the Opponent's Defensive Linemen in his face all season long, and did an outstanding job of leading this team to 7 wins. I'm not sure of much going into the season this year, but I would bet everything I own, Blake will be the starter again this season, and will be better for what he went through last year. In the Spring of '05 I was really pulling for Brett Nichols because of the good reports about him from Spurrier early in March. Brett is from around my old stomping grounds, and I was routing for the Hometown kid. But when it came down to a toss up between Blake and Antonio Heffner going into the fall, I put my money on Blake. He did a steady progression by the time the Garnet and Black game was played, and established himself as the teams QB.
Another big disappointment came from the expected poor output from the offensive line. We knew going into the season that the O line was going to be a sore spot for the team, but I was expecting to see some solid play from the senior tackles in NaShan Goddard and Jabari Leavy, Their play was OK, but we didn't get anything much from our ground game off the corners where these guys played until late in the year, and that was something we needed early on. We needed our upperclassmen on the offensive front to step up, because we were leaning on a couple of freshmen running backs to make up our ground game. You can do that with a solid offensive line (ie: Arkansas, Clemson ), but not with an average or poor one. The talent of these two young freshmen RB's finally showed up late in the season, but had we been able to run like that from the start of the year, I'm convinced we would have beaten UGA (and been in the SEC Championship game), and would have put up at least 17 more points on Central Florida, and Troy.
A couple of other let downs to me personally was the play (or lack of) from the two big names coming into fall camp last year. Carlos Thomas and OJ Murrdock. I was expecting OJ to be on the depth chart for the fall, and to see alot of playing time from him. OJ had a hard time getting adjusted to the college game, and Spurrier's style of play. I hope he's progressed some during his R/Shirt season. Carlos also underachived when compared to his expectations during recruiting. Biggest of those was his not being able to hang onto the football. I think Spurrier made the right move in getting him on the defensive side of the team, where it looks like he'll be a big asset for us next season.
Best surpprise of the year was hands down the play of Sidney Rice, and when you say that, it speaks tons for what he did this year. Sidney was praised for his ability during practice, but when it came gametime, he put it in a Whole Different Gear, and outdid even what we thought he was capable of doing! This was outstanding on one hand, but created a big problem for the Gamecocks late in the season, because IMO, Blake became too dependent on Sid's ability, and forgot about Kris Clark, Kenny McKinley, and Noah Whiteside. That showed up in the game with Clemson, and Missouri BIG TIME!! Blake will become 100% better once he learns that Sidney's best plays on the team, may be the plays where he's not thrown to. The addition of Jared Cook, Freddie Brown, and OJ (hopefully Sevelle again, and maybe even Cory Boyd) will make this offense FEARED in the Southeastern Conference if Blake learns to use them all.
It'll be interesting to see how this thing shapes up this Spring and fall. Last season I thought we'd be good enough on defense to overcome some of the shortcomings on offense. And I thought we'd be a much improved with our Special Teams. This year, it looks like expectations will be lower when looking at our O/line, and Defensive front. Last year: High expectations, Low output. I'm hoping the reverse will be true again this year. One thing's for certain, I'm not going to get fooled into thinking the play will be the same during the season, as it is in practice. Looks like that quote from Lou Holtz was right: "Things are not always as good as they appear, nor always as bad as they appear".