The South Carolina Gamecocks will have a big weekend as spring football practices come to a close.
The annual Garnet & Black Game at 1:00 p.m. in Williams-Brice Stadium is just the finale of a weekend that celebrates the recent success of Gamecock football. Steve Spurrier has made South Carolina is a heavy player in the SEC East Division and this weekend if a testimony to that success.
It starts on Friday night with the Senior Banquet at which time the players are going to be presented with rings honoring their winning of 11 games in the 2012 season. It was the second consecutive year the Gamecocks won 11 games. The 11 wins posted in 2011 was the first time in South Carolina history.
The spring game is scheduled for four 12-minute quarters. The annual football spring awards will be presented by Spurrier at halftime. Also at halftime, former college and NFL great Ted Hendricks will present Jadeveon Clowney with his trophy as the 2012 winner of the Ted Hendricks Award, given to the nation’s top defensive end. Clowney will not play in the Garnet & Black Game because of an injury.
Spurrier has divided up his five quarterback candidates for the spring game.
“We’re going to have (Brendan) Nosovitch and Connor Mitch on the same team,” said Spurrier. “[Quarterbacks] Dylan (Thompson), Perry (Orth) and Austin Hails will be on the other team.”
The Gamecocks have prepared for this Garnet & Black game with two previous spring scrimmages.
“It was a pretty sloppy scrimmage overall. Some guys did pretty well and some guys weren’t very good,” Spurrier said of the last scrimmage. “It was most of the younger players going at it. I think the defensive guys were in position and played pretty well. The quarterbacks were sporadic and the receivers dropped a few here and there. Overall, the protection probably wasn’t very good either.”
Despite not having Clowney, South Carolina’s best defensive player on the field, defensive e coordinator Lorenzo Ward saw some good that came out of it.
“The first time I watched it on Sunday, I wasn’t pleased at all,” he said. “But when you go back and watch it again, not bad. I thought we had some plays on the perimeter we should have made; we were in position to make. You never want to give up a big pass like we did at the end. We’ve got some things we still need to work on.
“I think we’re getting a lot of young guys a lot of reps. It’s hard to evaluate them when you just sit there and watch. I like to make a fair evaluation after I look at the video, but I think the guys are giving effort.”