USC Head Coach Steve Spurrier:

Opening Statement:

"Okay, as you know it was a big stuggle up to the middle of the third quarter.  I appreciate our fans being patient with out offense.  Fortunately, we seem to have a pretty good defense.  NC State is a pretty good team.  They're not going to be the best team we play, but they stuffed us up pretty good offensively the first half or so.  And then, I don't know if they got worn down or what, but we finally got some runs going.  Mike Davis ended up with one hundred yards.  And we were able to score a few points there in the fourth quarter.  It was a struggle, but thank goodness we were able to bring our defense to the ball game that pitched a shut out.  I gave a game ball to Ellis Johnson.  His first game as a coordinator here, to pitch a shutout is a pretty good start.  Ray, our special team guy, we were perfect in special team play.  I don't think there were any errors anywhere.  Those two were better than the offense, but fortunately we hit a few balls there at the end and had some runs and I think that's the most yards in the fourth quarter that maybe I've ever had a team make - that was ahead that is.  Usually, we're just just running around a little bit, but we hadn't thrown any balls to the receivers.  Coach O'Brien might be a little upset.  I don't know.  Gosh, we've got to hit some passes sometime in the ball game.   Moe Brown's got to catch one sometime so we threw one down in the fourth quarter to him.  But anyway, Chris Smelley did come in and play very well.  We'll have to watch the tape and analyze it and see what in the world happened with Tommy.  But anyway, we'll evaluate that and make a decision on who starts next week.

"We're going to try to put the best guy out there to win the ball game.  If we think Chris Smelley gives us the best chance, he'll go out there."

"I thought our offensive line was not very good until the fouth quarter.  Another gameball went to Mark Smith, our strength and conditioning coach, which obviously, anybody that watched the game could tell we were the superior team conditioning-wise."

"We were struggling there until we popped that 3rd and 6 draw play.  Remember that one from about midfield.  We should've run more draws obviously.  That one broke their back it seems."

"I thought we (offensive line) struggled early, but then obviously late we played pretty well there.  I don't know if NC State got tired and worn down a bit.  But I didn't think we played very well early, no."

"All I can say, is I know he (Tommy Beecher) threw better in practice than he threw tonight."

"The whole defense was super.  NC State lobbed a few long ones that they dropped."