Auburn scrimmaged again on Saturday, but Bryan Harsin saw some of the same mistakes made in the first scrimmage.

With just a week of spring ball left, Harsin is stressing the importance of cleaning up those mistakes.

“I think the overall theme for everybody, offense and defense in particular, is just being able to sustain that effort and that focus throughout practice and scrimmage,” Harsin said. “We had spurts of it but I don’t think we did a good enough job of it overall in that area of just sustaining and effort and focus throughout practice through the different moments and different situations we were in.

“In order to keep improving, we’ve got to be able to move forward with those same mistakes we’ve been making and we’ve got to make new ones. We’ve got to correct the ones we’ve made, we’ve got to learn from it and we’ve got to start making new mistakes. I think we’re making too many of the same mistakes over the last few practices and it’s time for our player and coaches, we’ve got to move. There’s got to be new mistakes being made.”

Overall, Harsin credited the defense as the strong suit of Saturday's scrimmage.

While the scrimmage was originally intended to be live, with Auburn students, faculty and staff able to attend, severe weather forced it inside.

Out of the rain and away from the eyes of fans, head coach Bryan Harsin said it was the defense who looked strongest today.

“Defensively, there were several turnovers today. I think there were three or four,” Harsin said. “There might have been a fumble. I know there were some interceptions in there as well. Two touchdowns from the defense… I thought defensively overall had a really good day. They were flying around. They were getting to the ball carrier. They were attacking. There were multiple players involved.

“It was good to see. It was good to see our guys on the defensive side making plays, getting to the ball. There were a couple of tipped balls that our defense came down with. I think that’s got to be the case if you’re hustling, get to the ball, good things happen. There’s production at the ball. There were some tips. We were able to get them.”

Because the scrimmage was forced inside, Harsin and the team was forced to change up the original format of the scrimmage. With limited space the scrimmage wasn’t live, and they worked more on situational plays.

An area they worked heavily on was playing in the red zone, a spot that Harsin did think the offense performed well at.

“Some of the red zone, I thought the offense moved the ball well in the red zone. They were given a shorter field but they executed well, made some plays,” Harsin said. “Getting some runs at the end there. Not live so a little bit difficult for the defense in those situations. But some of those guys did a good job of just punching it in, being physical, being downhill in the running game.”

Auburn will practice again on Monday, with just five practices remaining.

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