AUBURN | Bryan Harsin is expecting a response.

Coming off a 28-20 loss at Penn State and with a rugged start to SEC play looming, Auburn has a lot of areas that need to improve over the next two weeks.

“One thing after a loss — and, again, after every game — you go back and assess it,” said Harsin. “You look at what you did well, what you did not do well. That's No. 1. And after a loss, I think everyone's disappointed and should be. There's that sting of not getting the job done.

“We didn't accomplish the mission that we set out to accomplish. You use that. There's a lot of positives in that. You use that as motivation. You use that as, alright, 'I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough in these areas. We are not good enough in these areas.’"

Georgia State visits Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday, which should offer the Tigers an opportunity to work on specific areas such as a passing game that produced just 185 total yards and a pass rush and secondary that has allowed opposing quarterbacks to complete 78.7 percent of their passes, which ranks 130th out of 130 teams in the FBS.

“One, it starts with you. And as a team, we have to understand that what we did wasn't good enough,” said Harsin. “Credit to Penn State. We knew we played a very good opponent. But we know there were opportunities in there that we could've done a better job of things that we can control. And that's where it all starts. What did we do, that we can control, that we have to be better at? What were the things that we did that we controlled that we didn't execute well? And why? And you start to go back and look at, was it in practice? Was it focus? Was it a lack of time spent in preparing?”

Those are all questions Harsin and his staff will work through with AU’s players this week. After the GSU game, No. 23 Auburn opens SEC play at LSU, where it hasn’t won since 1999. No. 2 Georgia visits the following weekend and then a trip to No. 16 Arkansas before a bye week.

The Tigers come out of the bye week at home against No. 13 Ole Miss and at No. 7 Texas A&M. It’s a very challenging run of conference games into the first week of November.

But Harsin’s focus is squarely on the Panthers this week.

“Georgia State is a damn good football team,” he said. “They will be ready to play. They will come in here and they will give us their very best. If we don't prepare like that and we decide that's not as important on Tuesday or Wednesday to have ourselves ready, and then by Thursday and Friday is when we really start getting our minds right, then watch out. Because Saturday's going to be a tough day at the end of the day.

“That's the reality, and the sooner we learn that and do it every day, the better off we're going to be. And for our team and this program, we need to learn that, and we need to do it each and every day consistently.”

Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network.