Just one week ago, Randall Okimoto had some choice words for his team.

Farrington had just dropped its second game in as many weeks, falling 23-6 at Kapolei, when the 14th-year Govs' coach spoke candidly on the record about his displeasure with his team:

"I'm just concerned about the attitude," Okimoto said. "We're not playing — in my opinion — we're not playing Farrington football right now. We're kind of regressing a little bit because of our attitude. There's negativity on the sideline and they've just got to get over it. We just talk about winning the next play, but there's a lot of guys talking and blaming and pointing their fingers and all that stuff and we've just got to put that aside. They don't expect to lose too many games, so they've just got to learn how to handle it. Those attitudes is what we need to turn around."

Apparently, Okimoto's message resonated loudly with the Govs this week, which culminated with a 21-14 win over Campbell Saturday night.

"Basically it was just starting from film," said junior running back Challen Faamatau, who ran for 114 yards and three touchdowns in the game. "I mean, we had to take it serious, because those two losses really taught us something. We had to be more disciplined, be more prepared, our intensity in practice was really high, really great and everybody was just doing what they had to do."

Okimoto said he was happy with the attitude improvement from a week ago.

"It seems like we were on edge, not trusting one another, so we just told them that they've just got to focus on the next play," Okimoto said following Saturday night's victory. "It seemed like we were always focusing on the negatives, but then (tonight) I heard the guys on the sideline saying ‘stay positive, stay positive,' and ‘when a bad play happens don't get down, just focus on the next play,' so they showed that tonight and we had a lot of bad plays tonight."

Faamatau said the changes weren't purely about the team's mental approach and fortitude, but also a physical one.

"Our conditioning these past two games, our defense was on the field for a long time, and our conditioning wasn't really up to par, so this whole week we were really focusing on getting prepared for the team we were facing and just getting in shape," Faamatau said.

The Govs also improved defensively, limiting Campbell to 158 yards of total offense just two weeks after giving up 71 points in a loss to Mililani — the most ever allowed in program history in a single game.

"They did a good job," Okimoto said. "We have a lot of work to do, but considering the last few games, I like the way we responded tonight."

The defense helped set-up all three of Faamatau's rushing scores Saturday night. It forced three-and-outs that led to both his first and third TD run and got a takeaway inside the Sabers' 5-yard line when Ansen Faamasino recovered a Campbell fumble. Faamatau scored his second TD two plays later.

"They did a really good job," Faamatau said of the defense. "Coach Okimoto was really harsh on our defense starting from the Mililani game. I mean, giving up 71 points was really hard to believe and last week they did an all right job, but coach always tells us that we need to get better and this week, I can say that this was the best practice week we ever had during the season and we have to just continue having great practices like how we did this week."

Farrington clinched the Blue Division's second seed and a first-round bye in the upcoming Oahu Interscholastic Association Division I tournament.

"That's huge," Okimoto said of the week off. "We get to watch the playoff game and then we get to host at Roosevelt, so it's real big for us."

The Govs, who are ranked ninth in the ScoringLive/Hawaiian Electric Power Rankings, will take on the winner of the Campbell-Kaiser first-round game in two weeks.