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During his Sunday teleconference, Steve Spurrier shared his thoughts on the Gamecocks' big win against Missouri, Connor Shaw's heroic performance, and becoming bowl eligible.
On injuries sustained during the 27-24 double overtime thriller:
We have a lot of bumps and bruises. A lot of ankle sprains as usual. It seems like that's our worst injury. Mike Davis almost sprained his foot. He'll be out most of the weekend but will hopefully be ready by the weekend. Buster Anderson, Gerald Dixon, Ronald Patrick -- they've got little ankle sprains and will hopefully be ready by the end of the week also. Other than that, we came out with no major injuries, we don't think.
On Connor Shaw, who was apparently sick on top of having two sprained knee ligaments:
Connor came out alright with his knee and so forth. He's had sort of a flu bug or something. Maybe a stomach virus. He didn't go to the movie with the team Friday night. He didn't go to the breakfast... I think he ate a little bit of a pregame meal. But he felt pretty good at gametime.
On Shaw's performance:
Maybe because his knee had that little light brace on it -- maybe it made him stay in the pocket a little longer and throw the ball. Because he stood in there, bounced around a little bit, and made the throws. You know, the week before he took off running all the time. So maybe just having that little knee brace on told him, "Hey, make the throws." He can make all the throws. Anyway, that's just my guess about why he played so well.
On engineering the 17-point 4th quarter comeback:
I was just calling plays. That's all you can do. All you can do as a play-caller is keep calling plays and see what happens and try to guess a little bit about what defense they're in and so forth... I got some help up top when we hit the 4th-and-15. Steve, Jr. noticed the coverage they were in the play before. He said, "Maybe they'll be in it again." They played sort of a man, inside-out coverage, and it gave Bruce a chance to run that corner route.
On how one or two plays going a little bit differently would have resulted in a loss:
It's hard to explain it. The only way to explain it is that it was meant to be. We were watching the tape with the offensive coaches. First play of the fourth quarter was 4th-and-5 or 4th-and-6. We had nice protection and Bruce ran a little drag route, and we were able to hit him for about 8 or 10 yards to keep that drive alive. We made three out of five fourth downs. We made a 3rd-and-19. Hit that little screen pass, and Mike Davis took it all the way for a first down on about the 4 or 5 yard line. And the catch Bruce made for the first touchdown was just an unbelievable catch. He caught it falling out of bounds and jabbed his left foot just barely inside the end zone out-of-bounds line. Bruce really had an excellent game. I can't say enough about the catches he made in this game. 10 catches, 100-and-something yards, a couple touchdowns. He and Connor Shaw obviously got game balls. So many big plays all up and down that fourth quarter.
On South Carolina getting its sixth win and becoming bowl eligible:
We didn't talk about it much, but after the game somebody said, "Hey, we're bowl eligible." I said, "You doggone right we're bowl eligible." My wife said something before the game about the bowl game this year before the game. I said, "Jerri, we're not bowl eligible yet, pal. You better wait until we get that sixth win." We've all seen teams where something bad just keeps happening.
On whether he'll be rooting for Florida during the Cocktail Party:
I generally root for Florida about all the time anyway. Unless we need them to lose for us to gain something, of course. South Carolina is obviously my team now. I think I'm pulling for Florida about every time they play Georgia. That's for sure.
On how he has influenced Dan Mullen:
I know Dan a little bit. But not a whole much different than most of of the coaches in the conference. Of course, he was there at Florida for a little bit with Coach Meyer, so I guess he knows a little bit about our teams there in the '90s and so forth.