HOOVER, Ala. – As South Carolina continues to look for that breakthrough football season, motivation for this year has been provided.
Late last month, the Gamecocks swept UCLA to win the College World Series. The national championship was the first in a major sport for the school and just the second overall (joining a 2002 women’s track title).
“Our baseball team certainly proved you can win a big championship at the University of South Carolina, so hopefully that will rub off on other sports,” football coach Steve Spurrier said Thursday at SEC media days. “We’re the next one up. Hopefully we can take a cue from those guys and have a good run as we go through the season.”
Spurrier attended South Carolina’s triumph in Omaha, while senior defensive end Cliff Matthews was among the thousands who packed Colonial Life Arena when the champions returned.
“They walked through the crowd, and it was a feeling I had never felt before,” Matthews said. “It sort of ignited things for us. We want to feel how our baseball team feels.
“Nobody believed in our baseball team, and they proved everybody wrong.”
Profanity update
Former Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson did not tolerate profanity in practices, but new Commodores chief Robbie Caldwell isn’t sure he can continue that policy without being hypocritical.
“I’m no angel, that’s for certain,” Caldwell said. “We certainly do try to live by that. We want mothers to be able to come watch their child practice and not be embarrassed.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t get on you, now. We’ll chew your butt out in a heartbeat.”
No sneak peeks
Arkansas begins its SEC schedule at Georgia on Sept. 18 and at home against Alabama on Sept. 25, but quarterback Ryan Mallett insists he’s focused on opening games against Tennessee Tech and Louisiana-Monroe.
“I played Appalachian State when I was at Michigan,” he said. “I was part of that team, and we got beat in the first game of the season, so I kind of learned my lesson from that as far as overlooking people.”
Wedges no more
Due to the disproportionate number of concussions that occur on kickoffs, the NCAA has instituted a 15-yard penalty for return-team wedges of three or more players. SEC coordinator of officials Rogers Redding defined a wedge as players being shoulder-to-shoulder within 2 yards of one another.
Most of the wedge infractions tend to occur around the 15-yard line.
“If three guys happen to wind up on the same line together quickly and are moving on to do other things, that’s not a problem,” Redding said. “The problem comes when players drop back to form this little wall, because the concussions take place when the kicking-team players are coming down trying to bust up that wedge. The NFL put this rule in for 2009 and only had the foul occur about five times.”
Redding said that instant replay this year will include high-definition monitors.
Odds and ends
To invoke a big storyline from last year’s media days, Spurrier joked that he put Jevan Snead as his All-SEC quarterback. Snead left Ole Miss after last season but was not drafted. … Vandy faces just two teams hat didn’t play in bowls last year.