With their hearts freshly broken, several Auburn players entered the media room in the bowels of Jordan-Hare Stadium to answer what went wrong – and what went right – in the 27-20 loss to No. 1 Georgia.

It was apparent this loss was taking its toll on them. Payton Thorne, who played better than he had against Texas A&M, was quiet, looking like it was the last place he wanted to be. Which, you can't blame him for that.

The excruciating last-minute loss was obviously weighing on the mind and heart of Hugh Freeze as well. The coach, who has admitted that he is a crier at times, had red-filled eyes after speaking to his players just after the game. He said he told them he loved them and then described the scene in the locker room.

"It hurts in there right now," Freeze said. "And that's good to see. It hurts. It hurts those kids and our coaches and our fans, I'm sure, too."

Yes, a lot of hurt was apparent in the aftermath of the close loss to the top-ranked Bulldogs, but there is another four-letter word that starts with the letter h that comes to mind after yesterday: hope.

While Auburn fans might not have had a lot of that heading into the game, the Tigers gave them reason to believe with a fast start. For the first time in six years, the boys in orange and blue lined up against the Dawgs and punched them in the face. And, when the two-time defending national champions pushed back, Auburn didn't back down but kept on bouncing back up off the mat and declaring that this was a battle, not what this game had been recently.

But when there is hope, you become vulnerable. When you start to believe, that's when the knockout blow lands the hardest. And Brock Bowers delivered the blow in bunches on the final Georgia drive, landing the ultimate shot with his 40-yard touchdown catch with 2:52 to go.

Standing on the field in front of the student section, I observed the reaction to the Bowers score. What stood out was that despite all the odds against the Tigers, everyone still had that expression of hope on their face. And why not? This undermanned Auburn team had defied the odds and stayed in the game, and as we all know, strange things happen when these two rivals get together.

It wasn't until Payton Thorne's fourth-down pass was intercepted that the belief that Auburn could pull it out was gone.

And while this loss will sting for some time, I keep returning to the word hope. For the first time in a few years, the hope that Auburn can return to the standard it and its fans have is omnipresent. In the past, the Tigers would have laid down after Georgia took the lead and let the rest of the game play out with no heart.

But not this team and not this crowd. The Jordan-Hare Stadium atmosphere that opponents dread, that Jordan-Hare Stadium atmosphere, returned to its fullest on Saturday. And with that, Auburn almost pulled off the upset and likely made quite an impression on some talented recruits who can help rebuild this program.

Jalen McLeod, new to the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry, put the mood in the locker room in clear terms.

"It hurt a lot," he said. "You see a couple of boys in there crying. It hurt. It's a rivalry game. It hurt. That's all I need to say."

It hurts now, but there's hope for the future. And while I don't believe in moral victories, there was a lot of good to take from what we saw on Saturday and the direction this program is heading.

I'm confident anyone leaving the stadium on Saturday evening felt the same. It will take time, but belief and pride are back in Auburn football.