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DURHAM, N.C.(AP) Thaddeus Lewis seemingly couldn't get a haircut this summer without somebody pointing out the Duke quarterback. Players say they're getting as much attention from their back-slapping fellow students as they did after their only victory in nearly three full years.

David Cutcliffe hasn't coached a game at Duke yet, and already he has the Blue Devils feeling like winners.

Of course, all that goodwill could fade quickly if the Blue Devils slip back into their familiar losing ways, beginning with this week's opener against James Madison, one of the championship subdivision's powerhouses. But for now, the players are thrilled to finally be known for something other than losing streaks and poor play.

"Sometimes you feel like you're forgotten around here, because of basketball and lacrosse and the other successful programs," Lewis said Tuesday. "But it's coming, and a lot of people are showing a lot of respect to the football program. But if you want respect, it's earned, and we have to go out and get wins if we want to keep that going. We understand that."

Cutcliffe's hiring generated plenty of off-the-field energy with numerous appearances on North Carolina's summertime barbecue circuit. But they didn't hire him solely to fire up the boosters - they brought him in from Tennessee to change the program's laughingstock image and build it into a winner.

As the Blue Devils advance deeper into their first game week under Cutcliffe, they're starting to figure out how to avoid those bad habits that led them to three straight seasons of 10 or more losses and their current nine-game losing streak that has carried over from the Ted Roof regime and followed last year's Week 3 victory at Northwestern - the program's only win since September 2005.

"What we do at times is we try to revert back to 0-12 and 1-11 habits, and that's not acceptable," Cutcliffe said. "That's what we're here to make them understand, to practice with the same intensity, the same execution that never wavers. It never wavers. And we lose focus and we go back into that mode on occasion. Our job as coaches is to immediately correct that."

With new systems being installed on both sides of the ball, the Blue Devils have plenty of kinks to iron out between now and Saturday night's kickoff. Yet the players insist they're familiar enough with Cutcliffe's quarterback-friendly schemes to give their new coach a victory in his debut.

"We've been doing the same stuff since spring ball, so it's really about repetition and knowledge for us right now," defensive tackle Vince Oghobaase said. "And the offense, they've done the same stuff. You always add new stuff each week to the game plan, but as far as everything plays off each thing we've learned in the past, so as far as scheme goes, we're doing a lot of the same stuff that we've done in the (spring)."

For weeks, the Blue Devils have insisted that they're making progress behind closed doors on the practice field - from the strength-building winter workout program, to the methodical installation of the new systems during spring practice, to summertime conditioning and through preseason camp.

Now comes the tough part: Proving it publicly at Wallace Wade Stadium.

"People that I've met - not even students, but people in different areas of the country - they're starting to hear about Duke football, and they're wondering what's going to happen this season," linebacker Michael Tauililli said. "Coach Cutcliffe has done a spectacular job of getting out there and getting people excited and making sure people are on the lookout for us."