FORT COLLINS — Mike Bobo often reminds his Colorado State players, and especially quarterback Nick Stevens: “Ignore the noise.”

Bobo is only 41, but the outlets for the noise have increased, perhaps even exponentially, since he was Georgia’s quarterback in the mid-1990s.

“I’ll never forget, one game I didn’t play well, and I knew I didn’t play that great,” the Rams coach said Tuesday. “I remember seeing my mom (Barbara), and she was crying. She was crying because of the noise in the stands, of what people said about her son.

“It’s a tough position to play, but you have to be made of the right stuff, and you have to realize what your job is and what you have to do every day. You have to persevere every day, and that’s just part of it. That’s part of playing that position. You have to be one tough individual.”

The Rams are 2-3 heading into their home game Saturday night against No. 25 Boise State (4-1) at Hughes Stadium, and Stevens has been up and down in his first season as a starter. The redshirt sophomore is 89-of-160 for 1,129 yards and 10 touchdowns, and he was harried and under pressure in Saturday’s 33-18 loss at Utah State, when he threw for 252 yards and one TD.

So around him, the coaching staff and his teammates are giving him pep talks.

“That’s the easy thing to do in football, is blame the quarterback,” Bobo said. “And then you start to question yourself and what you’re about and your ability because you’re listening to noise.”

He said his speech to Stevens has gone along these lines: “The noise is myself and (quarterbacks coach Ronnie Letson). That’s it. Trust what you see, trust what we say, and throw the ball. If you’re thinking about everything else, then you’re going to be hesitant and you’re going to be worried about not making a mistake.’

“That’s the point I’m trying to get across to him. Ignore the noise and go play football.”

Last week, Stevens mentioned looking through his Twitter feed and realizing all was not sweetness and light in the discussion of his play.

“People don’t really know exactly what’s going on in the locker room,” Stevens said Tuesday. “With the team, I know a lot of the guys were proud of the way we handled ourselves at offense this past weekend. It’s not too hard to block out the noise. Just because everybody has an opinion, they’re going to want to share it. It doesn’t really matter what they say. It’s about what’s going on in this locker room.”

Boise State has a nation-leading 11 interceptions.

“We’re definitely going to have to take care of the ball on offense and create turnovers on defense, to try to win that turnover ratio,” Stevens said. “The big thing is taking care of the ball, don’t fumble and make all the right reads.”

Rashard Higgins, the Rams’ All-America receiver as a sophomore, still has faith in Stevens.

“I’m telling Nick every day, ‘We’ve still got it,’ ” said Higgins, who has 30 receptions for 426 yards and four TDs in the four games he has been available. “I want to keep his confidence up. I’ve told him, ‘When in doubt, you can throw me the ball, you’ve got playmakers on your side, just give us a chance to catch the ball. …

“The times that we have lost this season have been this close. Even though we’ve missed blocks, we didn’t do our assignments, we’re this close at the end of the day. A lot of people try to blame Nick for the losses, but in my eyes, it’s not Nick, it’s us. In order to win this game, we just have to execute. Nick needs to have confidence, and that’s a big part of this game.”

Footnotes. Both starting guards, Fred Zerblis and Zack Golditch, were in red limited contact jerseys at Tuesday’s practice but seem on track to play Saturday. Golditch didn’t practice until Friday last week, but he and Zerblis played against Utah State. “They’re still in red, so they’re not in great shape,” Bobo said. “But they’re practicing on Tuesday, which last week they did not. So we’re in better shape than we were last week.” … CSU officials said that as of Tuesday afternoon, about 20,000 tickets had been sold for the game.

Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or @TFrei