Harsin: Done 'some really good things’ in practice

AUBURN | Coming off a 41-12 drubbing by Penn State at Jordan-Hare Stadium, Auburn coach Bryan Harsin met with the media Monday afternoon for his regularly scheduled press conference.

One of the questions during the 15-minute session concerned what his team has done well in the first three games.

“Yeah, well, there's a lot of things that we've done well that I've seen,” said Harsin. “Again, you guys get to see a very small portion of what we do. You get to see the game. Which is the most important thing, right? That's, at the end of the week, that's the test. You guys get to watch the test.

“All the prep and all the things that we've been doing, I think there's some really good things that we've done.”

The Tigers head into the SEC opener against Missouri ranked 11th in the SEC in scoring offense averaging 26.0 points per game and ninth in scoring defense allowing 24.3.

AU is 130th out of 131 D-I teams with a minus-8 turnover margin.

“I think there's a long ways to go when it comes to what we focus on. I think that's the biggest thing, alright,” said Harsin. “Where our focus goes, what's important, what matters, I think that has to continue to be something that we address. But guys have gotten better in those areas. We're still just not there yet to raise that standard where we need to be.

“And to put in the really work each and every day to get to Saturday, so that we don't have some of the mistakes that we made. Because it matters on Tuesday. Tuesday matters for Saturday. And so on. But I think a lot of guys have handled that well. But we've got to get there as a team. It's nine guys doing their part, and two are not.”

Harsin talked a lot about execution, which is on the players to improve. But he also talked about the other end of the equation.

“We've got to coach it better, too. You look at that too,” he said. “If we're doing it right, and it's wrong, then we've got to fix it as coaches. But I think the team has handled each game, and even after Penn State, that was disappointing. Everybody felt that.”

So far, Harsin likes how his team has responded to the loss. Auburn practiced Sunday, took Monday off and will have a heavy practice Tuesday.

“You know, players don't hang onto this stuff as long as we do,” he said. “They've got practice, they've got individual, they've got to condition, they've got to get on to what's next, and I thought they did that. There was urgency. They were moving around. I think there was a sense of, you know what, that wasn't good enough. I think guys were pissed. And you could feel that.

“I can handle that. If we make a mistake or we don't have a performance, if you come back and you want to work and you want to improve it and you don't want that to happen again, and your attitude shows that, I'm good with that. If it's, 'It doesn't matter,' I'm not good with that. I think guys really showed that on Sunday."

Kickoff at Jordan-Hare Stadium is scheduled for 11 a.m. CT on ESPN.