Posted by: Chris Vannini on August 12, 2012

South Carolina kicker Adam Yates has already made his first pressure kick of the season.

At the end of Saturday's scrimmage, Steve Spurrier put the entire South Carolina team around Yates for the final kick. He also put a scholarship on the line for the redshirt senior walk-on.

Yates snuck the 42-yard kick inside the left upright and the Gamecocks went wild.

"If Adam Yates made it, he was going on scholarship," Spurrier said. "So he's the first one. We've actually got one or two more possible candidates as we go through the next couple weeks. You like how I got the whole team out there?"

Spurrier admitted the idea didn't come out of nowhere.

"I hate to admit this, but I got that from Urban Meyer at Ohio State last year in their indoor facility," Spurrier said. "He let all the students come down there and had the kicker go. That was as close as I could get. I'll have to admit, I learned that one from Urban. Shoot, we'll do that every year. I like that one."

Yates redshirted in 2008 and handled most of the kickoff duties in 2009, but did not appear in a game in either of the last two seasons. He graduated in May and is expected to handle the placekicking duties this season in his final semester — which is now paid for.

See Spurrier's comments about the kick at the 3:20 mark of this video.

In case you haven't seen "Marcus Lattimore: It's great to be a Gamecock," it's worth the watch.  Spurrier said Lattimore had 3-4 carries during Saturday's scrimmage.

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Chris Vannini is a lead writer for CoachingSearch.com and has covered Michigan State sports for The State News, The Oakland Press and MLive.com. He writes a weekly column for the Detroit Free Press on behalf of SB Nation. Vannini lives in Big Ten country, so his foot speed is far from SEC caliber, but his pulse on coaches is hard to match. Be sure to follow @CoachingBuzz on twitter and send your feedback to chris@coachingsearch.com