Auguste, Jerideau ‘may not play’ Saturday due to ankle sprains
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier hasn’t talked to the Gamecocks much about the atmosphere at LSU’s “Death Valley.”
“Most of our guys have never been to Death Valley,” Spurrier said. “That is the Death Valley, isn’t it? Or is there another one? There’s two of them. That’s right, there’s two Death Valleys.”
Though the Gamecocks have played in Clemson’s Death Valley, this will be this group’s first trip to Baton Rouge, La. There, they’ll see Mike, a caged tiger that resides where the visiting team enters the field. Spurrier said playing at Florida is the equivalent of playing at LSU as far as crowd noise and fan capacity.
“The Tiger doesn’t play defense or offense for them — not yet anyway,” Spurrier said. “They keep him caged up, I think. No, we don’t talk a lot about that. It’ll be very, very loud, just like it was loud for Georgia last week. That’s part of the game, that the home crowd gets to yell and scream at you.”
The biggest concern for USC will be the crowd noise when the offense is on the field, having to find a different way to audible plays. Spurrier said USC changed a “whole bunch” at the line last week, but wide receiver Ace Sanders said he doesn’t recall any of the touchdown plays being audibles. Sanders said the offense would need to find a different way to audible for the LSU games.
“Hopefully, when we pick up the foot, guys watch the ball and we won’t have a bunch of offsides and things like that,” Spurrier said. “We’ll try and concentrate on playing our assignments as best we can. That’ll give us plenty to think about.”
Injury update: Cornerback Akeem Auguste and defensive lineman Byron Jerideau “may not be able to play” with ankle sprains they suffered during the Georgia game.
Jerideau is still listed as the first defensive tackle, and Auguste is still listed as the backup cornerback to Jimmy Legree on the updated depth chart. Spurrier said left tackle Mike Matulis would be healthy to play this week after not playing most of the game against the Bulldogs.
The only other notable change on the depth chart was Damiere Byrd being listed ahead of D.L. Moore at wide receiver.
Les Miles: In Sunday’s teleconference, Spurrier said he likes LSU coach Les Miles and that they think alike on some things.
“I like what Les does, and he had a big year last year,” Spurrier said. “They were undefeated until the national championship game, won the division and the SEC.
“Is it more fun to win the SEC or the national championship? Alabama has won two nationals and only one SEC, so maybe it’s harder to win the SEC. I know for Les, winning that SEC was huge for LSU last year and going undefeated, so they had a remarkable year. They’ve got a lot of those players back. They know how to win and are a well-coached bunch of guys and so forth.”
Rankings: Spurrier said with the stretch the Gamecocks have ahead of them, having to play three top-10 teams, two of which are on the road, he’s not focusing on the rankings for now.
“Have you seen our schedule?” Spurrier said. “All we know is we have a chance for a special year, a so-so year, a pretty good year. We don’t know yet. The next four weeks will determine that, we do know that since it ends our conference schedule, which is sort of interesting.”