Thursday camp observations

SPARTANBURG -- Not a great day for second-year tight end Gary Barnidge, who has been working with the first team for much of training camp. He dropped two passes, both on curl patterns.

Incumbent starter Jeff King, however, made a tough catch in traffic for a touchdown in an 11-on-11 drill. King spiked the ball with feeling after the play.

-- Rookies Mike Goodson and Anthony Heygood competed hard for a ball thrown into the end zone. Goodson, a running back, appeared to have it before linebacker Heygood knocked it away. Coach John Fox congratulate both of them and one player yelled: “Hey-good job!”

-- One-on-one passing drills aren’t really fair to the defender, but linebacker Na’il Diggs made a nice play knocking the ball away on one of them.

-- Rookie Captain Munnerlyn of South Carolina had an acrobatic interception that he returned for a touchdown. “Why didn’t you do that last year?” yelled a fan in a Gamecocks hat. Several people laughed, but the fan didn’t smile and glared at Munnerlyn as he trotted back up the field. The fan might have had a point: Munnerlyn didn’t have an interception last year.

-- Jake Delhomme found rookie receiver Jason Chery in the end zone, but Chery couldn’t get both feet inbounds. It would have been a nice connection between two former Louisiana-Lafayette players.

-- When a deep pass fell incomplete – barely – in the end zone, defensive coordinator Ron Meeks had a fit, yelling at safety Quinton Teal: “What are you doing? Hey Quinton, knock the ball down! Don’t try to catch it!”

-- The offense ended the practice working on its two-minute drill, going over every little detail including Delhomme walking over to the referee (in this case special teams coach Danny Crossman) to call for a timeout before the 25-second clock expired. -- David Scott