Swinney stresses even-keel focus towards Coastal Carolina

Most weeks when a Football Championship Subdivision foe appears on a Football Bowl Subdivision team’s schedule, the usual suspects — like Appalachian State’s shocking upset at Michigan — are trotted out.

Dabo Swinney would have good reason to do so this week with Clemson facing Coastal Carolina in Saturday’s 1:30 p.m. homecoming game. Two ACC teams — Duke and Virginia — have already lost to FCS foes this year, and two more — Maryland and Florida State — have battled to the wire against FCS teams before winning.

Instead, Swinney is taking a different tact. This week, he says, is just as important as the other 11 game weeks on Clemson’s schedule.

“I just talk to them about staying focused,” he said. “I’ve told them for three weeks, it doesn’t matter who we play. It should not matter who we play, where we play, the weather, the uniform, the logo. Just focus on ourselves, show up, play hard, execute and see what the scoreboard says.”

Otherwise, bad things can happen, he said.

“(If you focus), you don’t have those kind of things where you get caught up in, ‘Oh, man, I’m sky high this week,’” he said. “You start listening to what people may say or write about an opponent, that’s not a smart thing to do in college football. Suddenly you go out and turn the ball over a couple times, mess up in special teams and you’re fighting for your life. We try and stay consistent with our preparation no matter who we’re playing.”

COOPER BACK; BROWN LIKELY OUT

Swinney said that backup “Sam” linebacker Scotty Cooper, who missed the last two games with a concussion, is expected to return this week. Special teams player Kantrell Brown (sprained neck) is not expected to play.

PUNT RETURNS A CONCERN

Swinney said one big focus this week is shoring up punt returns. The Tigers suffered a turnover at Maryland when an errant punt glanced off Andre Ellington’s body, and another short punt nearly hit Jacoby Ford’s arm at Miami.

“That’s one of the things I thought was most disappointing over the last two weeks,” he said. “We’ve let the ball hit the ground. Either we didn’t handle it, or it was a bad punt, or we didn’t do a good job of communicating our ‘poison’ call, being loud and telling everyone, ‘Get away, get away.’

“That’s something we’ve worked hard on, we don’t know where they’re going to punt it. People have given us different things. We’ve got to expect the unexpected and do a better job on the punt return.”

TIGERS WILL TAKE PART IN TIGERRAMA

Last year, the Tigers took part in Tigerrama, Clemson’s Friday night homecoming pep rally in Littlejohn Coliseum, for the first time ever. This year, they’re taking it up a notch. Swinney said that 12 players have prepared an 80s-themed skit to perform at the rally. The entire team will be in attendance as well.