Cooper out for Miami

CLEMSON - Dabo Swinney shrugs off the idea that crowd noise has played much of a factor in the Tiger’s road games at Georgia Tech and Miami.

Preparing to play on the road in a hostile environment included playing crowd noise over speakers at the practice fields on Wednesday. The noise was played Tuesday and will be played again on Thursday.

In those games, he felt it’s a matter of growing up and showing maturity--situations weren’t handled well at Maryland.

“It was loud at Maryland. It wasn’t any reason to have the penalties and make those mistakes like we made,” Swinney said. “Hopefully, we can show that maturity and learn from some good success and carry that over and understand what causes that success.”

At Georgia Tech, it was loud early, but he said the noise didn’t have much of a factor in play.

“The offense hadn’t even been on the field--neither had the defense and we were down 21-0,” Swinney said. “It was loud. Once we started getting it rolling and scoring, the crowd really, was kind of out of it. it wasn’t a big factor late in that game because of what happened. We took them out of it in the second half until right there at the end.”

He believes the Tigers are right on schedule in the installation of Saturday’s game plan for Miami.

Swinney is pleased with the preparation so far this week.

“We had really good focus and had a really good two-minute period at the end of the day. The defense won it and did a really good job,” he said.

“I’m real pleased with the demeanor of the practice, yesterday and today.”

The team practice in shoulder pads and girdles on Wednesday and will be in vests tomorrow.

“It’s attention to detail, it’s focus and making sure we know exactly what we’re doing and how we’re doing it--what we don’t know and don’t feel good about, let’s get rid of it and let’s go play,” Swinney said.

Scotty Cooper will be out again this week because of the concussion he suffered at Maryland.

“We cut him loose (Tuesday) and actually practiced well. But after practice he still had some remnants. We’re going to hold him another week,” Swinney said. “I hate that but we’ve got to do what’s best for him. Hopefully, we’ll get him back going Monday.”

On the season Cooper has recorded six tackles on 55 total snaps playing as a reserve SAM linebacker.