Muschamp clears the air on pregame handshake shenanigans

The non-handshake incident that preceded South Carolina’s 23-13 loss to Kentucky on Saturday night “never should have happened,” Gamecocks head coach Will Muschamp said.

The Wildcats captains -- Nick Haynes, Mike Edwards, Stephen Johnson and Courtney Love – told reporters after the game that the Gamecocks captains -- Hayden Hurst, Deebo Samuel, D.J. Wonnum and D.J. Smith – didn’t shake their hands as is customary before the game.

“I didn’t really know anything about this until this morning,” Muschamp said Sunday night during his weekly teleconference with reporters. “Our players are always expected to shake hands regardless of the circumstances, and I addressed it with them and our football team. We are always going to have class and display sportsmanship in everything we do and represent the University of South Carolina in a first-class manner. When I found out about it this morning I immediately called (Kentucky head coach) Mark Stoops and apologized for whatever ill will there might be, and absolutely Mark and I are one the same page. We will move on.”

Stoops said after the game that he had never seen that happen before.

“They wanted to go at it, but we were ready, too,” Kentucky’s coach said.

USC sideline reporter Langston Moore told The State that there was more to the story and that Johnson seemed to be the instigator in the affair in the way he was talking to South Carolina’s players.

“D.J. seemed kind of shocked that it was happening,” Moore said. “(Haynes) extended his hand to Deebo. At that point Deebo wasn’t even looking at No. 68 with his hand extend because of Johnson’s trash talk, and that’s when players kind of started the chest bumping and trash talk, and the refs stepped in and flipped the coin.”

Muschamp said Sunday that he didn’t ask his players for their side of the story.

“Shake the guys’ hands, regardless of what happens,” he said.

Several Kentucky players said after the game that the incident motivated them.

“That just fired us up even more,” Johnson told the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader. “Gave us even more motivation, which was pretty stupid on their part, but they just didn’t want to shake our hands.”

This story was originally published September 17, 2017 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Muschamp clears the air on pregame handshake shenanigans."