South Carolina vs Miami: Spurrier's Post-Game Press Conference

The Gamecocks finished the season with a win over Miami on Saturday. The full post-game press conference can be seen right here and quotes from Steve Spurrier are below.

On what made this win important:

It was a wonderful win for us, to get to 7-6. These senior guys, Dylan and his buddies that've been here the past 4 years won 40 games. 33 and 7. So it was a nice finish for our guys to actually win 3 of our last 4. Proud of the team, heck of a game... So, really happy for our players, happy for the Gamecock fans that came out here and to finish a winning season was just really super for all of us and especially for all the players.

On running the dang ball vs chunking it down the field:

I tell you, every now and then we think we can run the ball...and we [pfft noise], we didn't run very far at all. So I finally said, we're gonna chunk it down the field and see what happens and we started chunking it down, big second quarter obviously to hit a few balls here and there.

On the defense:

Defense had a lot of good plays, a few bad plays here and there. The little short pass we missed the tackle, let the guy run another fifty yards. I hope we can quit doing that someday around here, but we didn't do it very well this year. So anyway, Skai Moore had an excellent game...Jonathan [Walton] had a heck of a game.

On the final minutes of the game:

We finally made a first down to win the game at the end. When we scored with 4:13 left a lot of guys said they're a running team, they can't throw it. And I said no no no, I said they will onside kick, we'll have to get it and make a first down, you wait and see. I hate to predict like that, but they decided to kick it deep and fortunately we finally made a first down at the end of a game to put it away and consume the clock up.

On why bowl games are different:

Going into the offseason, you know I've said all along, dang it these bowl games are about the most important game of the year. Because you won't play again until the end of August, September, so fans, we all talk about this one 7 or 8 months. It's a huge game and we treat it differently than all the other games. We got all the wives and kids and grandkids, I mean we got the whole entourage, all the parents drive out here and hang out with the players a night or two before the game. So it's a little different...And we have so much downtime, you know we were all laying around all day yesterday. You know, regular season we don't lay around all the time. But still you come out and play and these guys were ready to play, they wanted this one.

On Carolina's winning streak in bowl games:

Yeah, like I said out there on the field, this one felt as good as the last three bowl games. It's sorta been amazing. We've been the home team all four of them, we got to wear our garnet on garnet and something good keeps happening for us late in the game there.

Miami, obviously a team with a bunch of national championships. You know, one of the guys said man we've been fortunate enough to beat Miami, Michigan, Nebraska and Wisconsin. And I don't know how many national championships Wisconsin has got, maybe one or so. But we've beat some big name teams the last four years and it's pretty neat. We got one school record this year Rick, four bowl wins in a row, put that on tv will you? So this team has not got shut out from everything.

On rivalries between conferences:

You know, I don't get into SEC vs ACC, we never even talked about it. You know, they got good teams, we got good teams, you know whoever plays the best that day is gonna win. Obviously they could've won or we could've won the game. We made a few more plays as it turned out.

On coaching changes and the future:

Well right now we finish up recruiting. We finish up recruiting with all our guys and if something happens down the road, we can strengthen our staff somewhere, then obviously I've got to look at that. But right now we'll enjoy this win and call our players and hope we keep all of them coming and maybe pick up one or two after this win.

On what the bowl win means heading into the offseason:

Yeah, a lot of boosts for next year. I mean, 7-6 and all the guys committed watched our guys hang in there and make some plays to win the game. So it's a boost, a shot in the arm, energy. I told our guys that now offseason workouts are gonna have a little more pep to them, a little more fire, a little more let's get after it.  I told them we've gotta be a more physical, faster team next year. We're not a real fast team overall and not as physical as we need to be. So we'll try to do that. We do that next year and we'll hopefully have a little bit better chance.