After two early ACC losses, both of them involving collapses in the late stages of the game, doubt has crept into the minds of Wolfpack fans who thought this was the year State could win a conference title.

However, those concerns don’t seem to be shared by the team itself. O’Brien said the team is “certainly” better than a year ago and he also said he has been pleased with the Pack’s effort, but disappointed with the outcomes.

“We have had good effort,” O’Brien said. “We just haven’t gotten the job done.”

With three of five of the Pack’s competitors in the ACC Atlantic Division already having two or more losses, the team knows it still has a chance to compete for a first place finish in the division. Keeping this in mind, O’Brien said the Pack is focused on playing one game at a time.

“I have a mindset that you don’t get to high or too low, whether you win or lose,” O’Brien said. “Each week is a challenge and when you go through it and you play 12 weeks in the season, the game you are playing now is the most important.”

Bobby Floyd said despite the early struggles, the team is prepared to come together to improve on the past two games and finish the second half of the season playing well.

“Nobody’s pointing fingers down there. Everyone’s banding together,” Floyd said. “We’re bunkered down and we’re ready to play our next six games.”

In addition to taking it one game at a time, O’Brien said controlling outside influences will be crucial to playing better throughout the remainder of the season.

“It is always a problem for kids on the outside telling them that they are too good. If you call a kid a dog long enough, he is going to start barking,” O’Brien said. “You have to make sure that they understand to focus each and every week and we will add them up at the end.”

After the past two games, a reason for concern is the secondary, which has surrendered big games through the air to both Riley Skinner of Wake Forest and Thaddeus Lewis of Duke. As expected, the awards were heaped upon Lewis Monday after his record-breaking performance against the Pack. For his 459 yard, 5 touchdown performance against the Wolfpack, he was named the ACC Offensive Back of the Week and Quarterback of the Week by the Davey O’Brien Foundation.

O’Brien said it is important to note that both opposing quarterbacks the Pack has faced the last two weeks have far more experience than Wilson, for all his impressive statistics.

“We ran into two good quarterbacks who played very good games against us,” O’Brien said. “You look at them, Skinner started 44 games when we played them and Lewis started 42. Our kid has started 16 and he is a pretty good quarterback, so what is he going to be like if he started 42 games? That is what the future does and that is what experience does.”

O’Brien said State is “playing [its] best guys” in the secondary and is not planning on putting any of the players currently slated to redshirt the season into the lineup.

“We finally have the secondary aligned the way we want to and we will see if we are better, and if they are not, we certainly are going to have to recruit guys,” O’Brien said. “We have some guys that are redshirted, I’d rather not take them this year. There are eight freshmen, whether redshirt or true freshman in the secondary on this roster, so I think the future is bright, but the future is in Boston next Saturday. “

Redshirt senior running back Toney Baker said it is crucial the team not dwell on the past because there remain six games left in the season and a chance to make a mark.

“[The most important thing] is for the team to believe we’re a capable team, a good football team,” Baker said. “We’ve got to keep it together within the players, just trying to stay focused on Boston College and the rest of the season. We can’t look back – that’s our biggest challenge.”

Moving forward into the upcoming Boston College game and the remainder of the season, O’Brien said he is looking for his team to improve its tackling and put the time spent on it in practice to use.

“It is about time we stood up and became accountable for ourselves and started tackling people,” O’Brien said. “We have worked awfully hard on it. We tackle Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday, you just can’t do it in a drill.”