Steve Spurrier's Sunday teleconference

On blocking from wide receivers

I think that was the best blocking by wide receivers since I've been here. Usually guys stand around and watch or fall on their face, but last night they were pushing and shoving and blocking people. On Mike Davis' touchdown run, the 36-yarder, Pharoh Cooper actually blocked two guys. He was blocking one and his teammate stumbled over him, so he knocked two guys down. Shaq Roland initially blocked his guy well, and then when Mike broke outside he peeled back and hit another guy. So we had two wide receivers blocking four guys on one play, which I think was a first around here.

On the play of the defense

We had a lot of good plays on defense, but we've got players not playing their assignment very well. We've got the same defensive coaches that were considered pretty good coaches last year. Now all of a sudden we can't get the team off the field very well. We don't force very many punts. We've got to improve on that. We think we have the players to do it, but at some point we've got to be a lot more disciplined in playing our assignments and so forth. But again it was good effort, I think, by our defensive teams. We did get a couple picks, but we've got a long ways to go.

On the running back rotation

Mike should start this week if he's healthy and able to practice all week, which he should be. He should be ready to start and go. And Brandon will be ready to come in there.

I was hoping to get David Williams a few more carries. He got one run and we couldn't block the outside pass rusher on a safety blitz. It was not a good play. We should have checked out of it if we could have, but sometimes that happens. So David didn't get much of an opportunity, although he was in there late and caught a little pass over the middle and got his hands on the ball again.

Shon Carson didn't get to play any tailback. He ran back a couple of kickoffs decent and dropped one, but fortunately that didn't hurt us at all.

On assigning blame for the dropped passes

Dylan threw it where he thought he had to throw it. It would have been a good catch if our guys coulda held on, but we just didn't quite hold on. Several times sorta got hit right after the ball got there. On the interception, Shaq was sort of expecting the ball a little more inside. But Dylan actually threw where he had to according to the defense, and he got one hand on it and ricocheted it. Their player made an excellent interception, a little shoestring catch. He picked it off the turf. Sometimes that happens.

On whether South Carolina had any injuries against ECU

No. None at all. In fact, while I'm talking to you guys I've got the Houston Texans on. You know, they've got three of our guys starting. They ran a reverse towards Clowney and he went and checked up the running back and ran down the reverse guy. So he's making plays all over the place, just to let you guys know.

On stopping Todd Gurley

We've got to have hopes and beliefs that we can, certainly. We'll see if we can or not. But he is a big, strong back. Either he or the quarterback at Oregon I guess are the Heisman leaders right now. Hopefully we can slow him down a little bit. But he's going to get his yards against everybody. They ran out the last nine minutes of the game on us last year, so we certainly know what they're capable of doing.