Auburn played its best offensive game against a power conference team all season.

The Tigers posted 482 yards of total offense and scored 21 points on a defense that ranked No. 28 in total defense before Saturday.

It was a step in the right direction.

Payton Thorne doesn't want to hear that.

"After a while, you get tired of silver linings, to be honest with you," Thorne said postgame. "It gets old and guys don't want to hear that. We're all competitors in there and at the end of the day you only want to hear that so much."

Turnovers were the biggest problem in the Tigers' two losses as they gave the ball up five times in both games.

Auburn only turned it over once against Oklahoma, but it was a pick-six that gave Oklahoma a lead it'd never relinquish.

Between that, drops, iffy pass protection late and questionable playcalling at times, there is quite a bit for Auburn to clean up, and it's holding the Tigers back from potentially being 5-0.

"It's time to win and we weren't able to do that today and so we got to look at why that is and clean those things up," Thorne said.

Thorne isn't going to want to hear it, but Auburn's offense absolutely took a step forward. Tight end Luke Deal mentioned postgame that they are starting to piece positive plays together and become the offense that they thought they could be in the preseason.

"They (Auburn) can run the ball," Deal said. "They can have explosive plays down the field. They do have guys that can make the block up front and be physical and finish these guys. I think it's just over time, we're finally figuring out our identity. I feel like we kind of knew our identity but we kind of got lost for a second."

A loss like this stings, no doubt. It's a game that felt all but over when Auburn was up 11 with 10 minutes to go.

But with a trip to Athens upcoming, the Tigers have to quickly turn the page.

"If you take a day off and wallow in it on Monday when we're game prepping then you're not getting better on Monday when you're game prepping where Georgia is," Deal said. "You should be hurting after this one. After one day, it's time to flip it and that's what some of these young guys need to understand."