AUBURN | A lot has been made of this being the Gus Malzahn Bowl because of his close ties to Arkansas, or the importance of this game to offense coordinator Chad Morris because he served as the Razorbacks’ head coach the previous couple of years.

But this game can’t be about that if No. 13 Auburn is to win. No, it has to be about much more, starting with how the Tigers regroup and reset after a devastating loss at Georgia a week ago.

“I’m actually really proud of everybody,” said linebacker Owen Pappoe after Tuesday’s practice. “We all know our performance on Saturday wasn’t really Auburn football to the standard that we should have played in. But we’re looking past that. It’s behind us now. We’re looking at it to just learn from the mistakes that we made and make sure that we don’t have a performance like that again.”

The 27-6 loss to Georgia was a physical beatdown, and the Tigers’ are certainly a banged-up team this week. But it’s the mental toil that could be the biggest detriment to the bouncing back with a strong performance at home against an Arkansas squad coming off an upset win at Mississippi State.

It’s not just that AU lost a top 10 battle against UGA, it’s the way the Bulldogs dominated from start to finish and on both sides of the line of scrimmage that must be overcome.

“Man it’s just one game at a time, man. Like, what happened, it happened,” Pappoe said. “There’s nothing we can do to go back and fix it, but what we can do is learn from our mistakes and just correct the things we messed up on last game so we don’t do that this game.”

They’ll have to do it without team captain K.J. Britt, who had surgery Friday and is out for an indeterminate amount of time. There are plenty of other starters on the injury list for the Arkansas game including right tackle Brodarious Hamm, running back Shaun Shivers, wide receivers Eli Stove and Seth Williams, and cornerback Jaylin Simpson.

Malzahn has challenged the ones that will play, fully healthy or not, to step up in the face of adversity.

“The championship-type teams, they respond. They improve,” Malzahn said. “It's so hard to improve each week. You look at college football, every year, some teams are playing their best at the first and they fade off. But the teams that are there in it at the end are the ones that gradually get better. We're capable of doing that.

“Now, we've got to do it. But that's our plan. Our guys are committed to it. Our coaches are, too. We do have the potential to do it. It's just a matter of doing it. But we need to be one of those teams that is steadily improving throughout the year.”

Kickoff at Jordan-Hare Stadium is scheduled for 3 p.m. CT on ESPN.