Steve Wilks began his weekly press conference by pleading with Panthers’ fans to show up Sunday to keep the Terrible Towels from taking over Bank of America Stadium.

With two home games remaining the next two weeks against Pittsburgh and Detroit, Wilks is trying to overcome several years of bad football and a few decades of Northeasterners moving to Charlotte to chase jobs and the sun — and bringing their hometown NFL allegiances with them.

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But the Charlotte-raised, Appalachian State-educated Wilks might be the man to do it.

The Panthers are 3-0 at home since owner David Tepper fired Matt Rhule on Oct. 10 and named Wilks interim coach. Rhule’s dismissal came a day after San Francisco clubbed the Panthers 37-15 in front of a sea of red jerseys at BoA Stadium. The Panthers’ fans who did show up booed lustily throughout the second half when they weren’t chanting, “Fire Matt Rhule!”

Rhule was 5-15 at home in two-plus seasons with the Panthers, including a 2-6 mark in 2020 when games were played in empty stadiums because of COVID-19.

Got it done 💪

— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) December 12, 2022

Under Wilks, the Panthers (5-8) have beaten Tampa Bay, Atlanta and Denver at home. And while there were a good number of Broncos’ fans at the Nov. 27 game, it was nothing like the 49ers’ takeover in Rhule’s final game.

After the Panthers won their first away game of the season at Seattle, a pumped-up Wilks reminded his players what was next.

“The one thing we have established right now — we protect the Bank!” Wilks yelled in the visitors’ locker room at Lumen Field. “We don’t lose at home! We protect the Bank! You understand that?!”

During a Zoom call with reporters Monday, Wilks called on the Panthers’ faithful “to come out and support this football team in high fashion to keep those Steeler fans out of Bank of America Stadium.”

That will be easier said than done. The Steelers are one of the NFL’s winningest franchises — their six Super Bowl titles are tied with the Patriots for most — with a loyal fan base. Those fans show up in droves on the road, including exhibition games in Charlotte nearly every other year.

But this is the Steelers’ first regular-season game at Carolina since 2014. And despite the Steelers’ 5-8 record, Wilks can expect to see a lot of yellow and black Sunday, especially if PSL owners were selling their tickets before the Panthers’ current, two-game win streak.

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“I’ve been around here. I’ve been in that stadium when you couldn’t even hear yourself talk because it was so loud (with) the success we’ve had here in the past,” said Wilks, a Panthers assistant under Ron Rivera from 2012 to 2017. “So I am asking for our fans to show up en masse this week so we can have that same atmosphere when we play the Pittsburgh Steelers.”

No one — Rivera and Wilks, included — needed to encourage fans to hang on to their tickets during the Panthers’ three-year run as NFC South champions, concluding with that magical 2015 season when the Cam Newton-led Panthers went 15-1 during the regular season and made it to Super Bowl 50 against Denver.

Wilks recalled how loud the crowd was for the win against Arizona in the NFC Championship Game. But he also pointed to a Week 16 game against New Orleans in 2013, when Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis both intercepted Drew Brees, and Newton hit Domenik Hixon for the game-winning touchdown with 23 seconds left.

“It was pretty loud that day,” Wilks said. “We had some different weather where I think we had all three seasons in one game, to where it rained and felt like it was gonna snow a little bit, and then the sun came out later. But the crowd was phenomenal.”

The Panthers’ Super Bowl window with Newton, Kuechly, Davis, Greg Olsen, et al was still open in 2017, when they went 11-5, but were swept by the Saints — losing to New Orleans twice in the regular season and also in a wild-card game.

Wilks, who was Rivera’s defensive coordinator in 2017, left after the season to become Arizona’s head coach. Meanwhile, the Panthers had a good start to the 2018 season, taking a 6-2 record to Pittsburgh for a Thursday night game. Tepper, the former Steelers minority owner who bought the Panthers in July of 2018, was in a good mood while talking to reporters on the Heinz Field sideline before the game.

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But then T.J. Watt drilled Newton in his throwing shoulder late in the first half, the Panthers lost seven games in a row and nothing’s really been the same in Charlotte since.

Retired Panthers safety Kurt Coleman was a starter on the Super Bowl team and still lives in Charlotte, where he’s part of the Panthers broadcast team and a private school administrator. Coleman said the fact that the Panthers are still a relatively young franchise is part of the reason you see other teams’ jerseys at BoA.

“You go to a lot of these established franchises — when you go to a Dallas game, you go to a Packers game, you know they’re gonna show,” Coleman said.

There’s also the matter of all the transplants moving to Charlotte. Researchers at UNC’s business school pegged Charlotte as the No. 8 fastest-growing city in the U.S. as part of a study this year.

That wouldn’t surprise Panthers rookie left tackle Ikem Ekwonu, the Charlotte native who said he grew up with a lot of Jets and Giants fans.

“I’ve even got family that’s Jets and Giants fans,” Ekwonu said Monday. “It’s cool, I guess, seeing that diversity, seeing the growth coming in of Charlotte. It’s definitely a cool experience growing up, being able to experience other people’s fan bases a little bit.”

It’s not as cool to experience those fan bases on game days, which is not a phenomenon unique to Charlotte. Even as Baker Mayfield was leading the Rams to an incredible comeback against Las Vegas last Thursday night two days after getting to town, the former Panthers quarterback had to cover his helmet earholes to hear the play calls over the din of all the Raiders’ fans at L.A.’s SoFi Stadium.

But Wilks is trying to recapture the glory days when fans would sit through torrential rainstorms — as they did during a Monday night game against the Colts in 2015 — to cheer on the Panthers.

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Coleman believes Wilks, his old secondary coach, can do it.

“He’s everything that Charlotte is. He stands for everything,” Coleman said. “He’s worked his way up. He didn’t get a free pass by any means. He has worked his way (up) and he has earned everything that’s been given his way. It’s what this city needs and that can get behind and rally around and support.”

(Top photo of Steve Wilks: Jane Gershovich / Getty Images)