AUBURN | If Auburn's receivers were playing a game of Hot Potato, congratulations: they won.

In what's been a problem, the majority of the Tigers treated Bo Nix passes as if they were Superman and the ball covered in kryptonite. Shedrick Jackson dropped a pass over the middle that would have been a key first down. Shaun Shivers had one bounce off his hands for an early Georgia interception. Playing against his old team, Demetris Robertson failed to come down with some catches he should make.

Maybe Cornelius Williams wasn't the problem?

"The drop issue, it's frustrating," Bryan Harsin said. "We have too many. At the end of the day, we had too many."

The performance was the worst of the year and came at the worst possible time: in a game that Auburn needed to play almost perfectly to pull an upset against the top defense in the nation. It stopped all the momentum that the Tigers could have had on offense. The only two that showed good hands were Kobe Hudson and John Samuel Shenker, with even the latter missing a potential touchdown on the first drive, which was half his fault and half Bo Nix's.

Stats show that the Tigers dropped 17 passes in all. While that is probably wrong, it seems possible after watching Auburn bumble away opportunity after opportunity to move the chains. On the other side, Georgia's receivers were sure-handed and took advantage of a Tigers' secondary that was … well, was bad. Ladd McConkey couldn't be covered, going for 135 yards on five receptions and a score.

It showed the difference between a great team and one that is still trying to find out who they are and catch up after falling even further behind the Bulldogs and Alabama in talent. If not fixed, Nix will soon lose faith in these receivers to make plays when needed if he hasn't already. That makes the Auburn offense even less dangerous and easier to plan for.

It's not that Harsin doesn't expect at least some drops, but the sheer volume is unacceptable, repeating what he had said just moments earlier.

"Drops, they're going to happen," he said. "You're never going to have a perfect game. ... But we had too many."

Frustration has to have set in for many, especially Bryan Harsin, who has been harping on the receivers becoming consistent since the beginning of fall camp, if not since he arrived.

They seem as far as ever from reaching that goal.