Decision on health of starting quarterback coming Thursday 
South Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw is still a “wait-and-see” to start Saturday’s home opener against East Carolina after suffering a right shoulder contusion during the game against Vanderbilt last week, said coach Steve Spurrier at Tuesday’s press conference.
“Every time he fell on his back or on his shoulder — wherever — he got up in a little pain there, and you know, I don’t think anyone wants to see that,” Spurrier said. “So if he’s in pain, he doesn’t need to be out there playing ... From what I understand, he thinks he’s not going to have any pain by the weekend, but we’ve just got to wait and see.”
If Shaw cannot “pitch it around” on Thursday, Spurrier said Dylan Thompson will be the starter against ECU, with senior Seth Strickland getting consideration for playing time, too. Spurrier reiterated that the injury is a deep bone bruise and not anything in the joint; however, in his teleconference on Sunday, he said Shaw was having trouble lifting his right arm.
If Thompson were to start, Spurrier said the game plan would not change. If the passing finds rhythm, then the preference is to “keep firing away,” but if that doesn’t work, USC will likely rely on the run game.
“We’re trying to get [Thompson’s] confidence up,” Spurrier said. “It’s a struggle getting his confidence up, but he works at it. He works hard, sometimes maybe works too hard.”
Though Spurrier expressed displeasure with the passing game on Sunday, as the Gamecocks finished with just 67 yards in the air, he changed his tune on Tuesday. Shaw was second in rushing yards to tailback Marcus Lattimore against the Commodores on Thursday.
“Sometimes we’re hoping our other quarterbacks are as good a runner as [Shaw] is, but that was our formula to try and win the game last week, was the quarterback and Marcus running,” Spurrier said. “Fortunately it worked out.”
Questionable ending: Spurrier started Tuesday’s press conference by addressing chatter about whether senior safety D.J. Swearinger’s pass breakup on the final Vanderbilt offensive play should have been called as pass interference.
“When the play occurred, I think most of us at the game almost thought the guy dropped the ball,” Spurrier said. “Later we found out D.J. got his hand in there that caused the drop. You know the defensive guy has the right to go for the ball as well as the offensive guy, so that’s a very close call. Maybe the tape showed his hand hit his hand, but I thought it was an outstanding play and people making a big deal out of that one.”
Shell “pretty healthy” after injury: After suffering an ankle injury in Wednesday’s practice last week, left tackle Brandon Shell is “pretty healthy” and expected to play against ECU, Spurrier said.
Mike Matulis has also been getting snaps on the left side, and Cody Gibson is still listed as the starter on the right side. Spurrier said Corey Robinson had a good day of practice, too.
“I think we need to play a whole bunch of people,” Spurrier said. “We need to give a lot of guys chances. The game kind of got so tight last week we didn’t have the opportunity to hardly play anybody, sort of stick with the guys you think are your first-teamers.”
Wildcat formation: Spurrier said seeing sophomore Bruce Ellington in the wildcat formation against ECU would be a possibility. There were no snaps in the wildcat formation against Vanderbilt.
“He ran one or two against them last year at East Carolina, so they know he’s capable as anybody, so we’ll have one or two plays available,” Spurrier said. “We actually had a couple available last week — just never did get to them.”