AUBURN | There was plenty of positives from Auburn’s defense Saturday night.

A goal-line stand and holding San Jose State to just 54 rushing yards certainly stands out. But there’s also plenty of areas for improvement starting with turnovers.

For a second consecutive game, the Tigers’ defense failed to force a turnover and are now last in the SEC with a (-4) turnover margin.

“At the end of the day, on defense, the goal is to be a plus-one in turnovers. We're minus four in the last two games,” said AU coach Bryan Harsin. “When the ball is being thrown at some point we have to be positioned to make a play. We have to make more plays on the ball than we did. We have to find ways to come down with those 50/50 balls.”

Harsin singled out AU’s secondary for a second consecutive game. Against Mercer last week, Fred Payton attempted 36 passes without an interception. SJSU’s Chevan Cordeiro completed 24 of 40 passes without a turnover.

Auburn has nine pass breakups on 76 pass attempts.

“I still think we gotta improve,” said Harsin. “I like the guys we had back there. I thought Keionte Scott did some good things. But some of those ones-on-ones I believe in our guys. I believe that we can win some of those one-on-ones a little more.”

Auburn also had two pass interference penalties, one each by starting cornerbacks Nehemiah Pritchett and Jaylin Simpson.

“Penalties are frustrating, but I gotta go back and look at them. I'm sure we'll send some of those in, but we had too many of them. We had too many third-down conversions,” said Harsin.

The Spartans converted just 4 of 13 third downs but did have 21 first downs and 275 passing yards.

After playing two Group of 5 teams to open the season, the competition will be much tougher this Saturday when Penn State visits Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“Need to get off the field on third down more, and we gave up some deep balls, too. So, we’re going to get all that corrected,” said linebacker Owen Pappoe. “It’s just little things like guys having bad eyes, using bad leverages, busted coverages. We had a few busted coverages, but it’s Penn State coming up this week.

"Maybe we can get away with things like that versus a team like this, but versus Penn State we’re going to have to come out and correct those things.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. CT on CBS.