Auburn is dead last in opponents' completion percentage through the first three games. Akron, Alabama State and Penn State have combined to complete 78.7% of their passes against Auburn.

Obviously, that's a number that needs to improve drastically for Auburn to be able to succeed moving forward.

"Well, I think it's a combination of, you know, our opponents doing a good job of executing their pass game, so guys actually catching the ball and doing that. But we've got to come up and challenge them," Bryan Harsin said. "That's too high of a completion percentage that you want to see against the defense, so there's things that we have to do as far as putting ourselves in zone coverage in better positions."

Another area Harsin pointed to was Auburn's pass rush. The Tigers had just one quarterback hurry on Saturday — which came from linebacker Zakoby McClain — and failed to register a sack.

Harsin believes his team will be able to improve in the pass rush as the season goes on, thus helping lower the opponents' completion percentage. But, he's still looking for his secondary to be able to stick in coverage longer.

"Even on the scrambles when a guy gets out of the pocket, we have to plaster and cover and stay in coverage a little bit longer and be able to make some plays on the ball," Harsin said.

Under former defensive coordinator Kevin Steele the Tigers utilized a lot of very heavy, press, man coverage schemes. But Derek Mason has switched gears and has the corners heavily in zone coverage schemes.

A willingness to give up short plays and yards, but try and contain the big plays. So far, though, it's led to some issues.

“Yeah, I don’t really know if it’s a growing pain. That would—we’d be making the assumption that we’re allowing that and just kind of playing soft and making sure that we’re not trying to be aggressive," Harsin said. "I don’t think that’s the case. You want to protect yourself from big-play opportunities at times, but we are trying to be aggressive throughout the gameplan. I don’t think we’re trying to just play soft and give up those throws. We haven’t executed the way that we could and should."

Auburn's secondary will get a chance to lower that opponent's completion percentage when Georgia State comes to town this Saturday. The game is set to kick off inside Jordan-Hare at 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network.

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