AUBURN | Coming into 2020, Gus Malzahn had lost four or more games in six consecutive seasons.

Auburn’s eighth-year head coach made it seven Saturday with a 31-20 home loss to No. 5 Texas A&M to drop the Tigers to 5-4.

Malzahn came into the game talking about the importance of beating the Aggies and finishing the 10-game, conference-only season at 7-3 to build momentum for recruiting and going into next year.

“It’ll be transition,” said Malzahn of resettling team goals. “It’ll be the next best, the 6-4. That’s what it’ll be, 6-4, and if you had a normal non-conference schedule it’d be a solid year.

“But obviously we’re not happy we weren’t able to beat one of those ranked teams. I think we played the No. 1, No. 5 and what was it, No. 2 or 3 on the road earlier, and we weren’t able to win those games.”

Auburn went 1-3 against ranked teams with an opening win over No. 23 Kentucky, which is currently 3-6, and double-digit losses to No. 4 Georgia, No. 1 Alabama and the Aggies. In those three losses, the Tigers were out-scored 100-39.

Many of the problems came along the line of scrimmage. In the losses to UGA, UA and TAMU, Auburn was out-gained 658-355 on the ground and allowed nine sacks.

Quarterback Bo Nix struggled in three of the four of AU losses, which included a 30-22 defeat at South Carolina, completing just 56 percent of his passes and throwing six interceptions with only one touchdown.

Nix was better against TAMU Saturday, completing 15 of 23 passes for 144 yards and rushing for 49 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries.

He gave a long answer when asked about the frustration of being 5-4 .

“I think from the standpoint of 2020 overall, I think it was frustrating for most teams, to be honest with you,” Nix said. “What we’re used and what we’re accustomed to in the game of football hasn’t been the same this year. It’s been completely different. At one point, we didn’t even know if we were going to have a season. So that was frustrating. Just learning how to go through adversity is just part of the process. It’s not like we have a bad team by any means. We played 10 SEC opponents, and it wasn’t like we were blessed with the opportunity to play the lowest four like some other teams. We battled and we competed the entire season. Teams that maybe we played that we were ranked, they just had good football teams and great experience. Probably our three losses against Georgia, Alabama and A&M – they all had really good teams with playoff hopes when we played them.

“I mean, you can put a lot of things on a lot of people and say a lot of things about this and that, but at the end of the day, they were just better than we were when we played them. That can go into the offseason, that can go into not having a spring, not having a summer, not developing guys this offseason and sending them home, so this kind of season goes to who has the most experience. We felt all year that, at the beginning, we were going to be the least experienced team, and I think some games it kind of showed. Some games we might could have played a little bit better, it came down to the other team having better experience. For whatever reason, this that and the other, we lost to those teams. So it’s definitely a learning year. All you can do is just move forward, make sure you finish the season how you’d like and not just let the whole season go to waste.”

Auburn finishes up the regular season next Saturday at Mississippi State.