BIRMINGHAM | Auburn had plenty of issues on offense in its 17-13 loss to No. 20 Houston in the Birmingham Bowl.

A number of them took place deep in Cougars territory.

In 23 offensive plays inside the UH 30-yard line, the Tigers came away with just 13 points. That included a turnover on downs at the 20-yard line.

"I mean that was our issue most of the day. It was pretty frustrating,” said tight end John Samuel Shenker. “We moved the ball pretty well until we get down there and you have little mental errors or snap the ball on the wrong cadence and stuff like that, that’s just little things in the game that you can’t afford to happen this late in the season.

“This late in the season the little things you should be — the little things should be the easy part.”

Auburn came up completely empty on its first drive inside the 30 in the second quarter. An offsides penalty gave AU a first down at the UH 28-yard line. Tank Bigsby ran for eight yards on first down but the next three plays netted zero yards on a pass, Bigsby run and pass.

The Tigers’ final drive of the game, this time on their own end of the field, would go eerily similar.

A Bigsby 51-yard catch and run got AU down to the UH 22-yard line later in the second. T.J. Finley found Bigsby for 11 more yards on the next play but the next three netted one yard and AU settled for a 27-yard Ben Patton field goal.

On the opening drive of the second half, Bigsby had a 32-yard run down to the UH 19-yard line, but promptly lost four yards on the next play and Finley threw two incomplete passes to set up a 35-yard field goal by Patton.

In its first three trips inside UH’s 30-yard line, AU managed 16 yards on 11 plays.

“When we got into the red zone they did a good job on a couple of plays and I thought we could have executed a little bit better, and we could have called some better plays too, to put them in a better situation,” said Auburn coach Bryan Harsin. “That’s football. That’s what happens every single game. At the end of the day you’ve got to find a way to put points on the board when you need to or to hold them if you’re up and it’s a tight ballgame.”

Auburn finally managed a breakthrough late in the third quarter. A 42-yard pass to Shenker and a 7-yard pass to Bigsby got AU down to the UH 26-yard line. It took eight more plays including a conversion on 4th and 1, but Finley finally found Kobe Hudson for a 12-yard touchdown on 3rd and 12 to give AU its only lead of the game at 13-10.

The Cougars answered with a go-ahead touchdown late in the fourth quarter and on AU’s ensuing drive, Bigsby gained eight yards on first down followed by three incompletions as AU turned it over on downs on its own 33.

The Tigers finish 6-7 in Harsin’s first season, the first losing record since 2012.