Emotions were high postgame for Auburn football following the 17-7 loss to Vanderbilt at Jordan-Hare Stadium. A brief scuffle ensued midfield as teams embraced afterwards leading to players being separated.

Now the Tigers enter a bye week before it’s next contest against ULM, Payton Thorne is challenging his group to stay focused with their backs now completely against the wall moving to 3-6 overall and just 1-4 in the SEC.

“You know, it’s tough. First off, you look at our defense, I thought they played outstanding. They played well enough to win. Held a good team to 17 points, and they had a short field on one of those, for sure. Credit to them for keeping on showing up,” Thorne said.

“Offensively, we’ve just got to finish drives. When we get it across the 50, we’ve got to do a good job of capitalizing on that. But, going into a bye week, we’ve got to be smart with our time and smart with what we’re doing. Just stay focused on the last games that we have here.”

Thorne completed 69% of his passes and threw no interceptions orchestrating the Tigers offense to 14 total first downs.

However, the swarming Vanderbilt defense not only sacked Thorne three times. but completely shut down the Tigers rushing attack holding them to 88 yards on the ground.

A week removed from his historic performance against Kentucky, Jarquez Hunter finished with only 50 rushing yards on 12 carries and saw just two carries in the second half.

“You know, it just comes down to execution,” Thorne said. “It’s a simple game, when you talk about it like that. There’s a lot of moving parts, for sure. If each guy does his job and it all comes together, then, usually, you get in the end zone. We must not be doing that. It’s something that we obviously have to focus on.”

Auburn now finds themselves in a do or die situation.

One more loss means the tigers will not be bowl eligible. If they can somehow win out, they’ll go bowling for the second-straight season.

On paper, ULM is supposed to be the tune-up game for the Tigers before facing Texas A&M and Alabama. Nonetheless, with how this season has been going for Auburn it’s hard not to consider the option of them possibly falling to ULM.

Thorne shared his message to the group to make sure they are not on the losing side in the ULM matchup.

“We’ve got to win out. It starts with the next game, which is in two weeks. Can’t worry about the next two after that,” Thorne said. “We need to win that one to keep it alive, obviously. Then you need to win the next one, then the next one. It’s one week at a time. We’ve got to be smart with our bye week and put a good plan together. So, we can go out and execute it for our next game.”

Jerry Humphrey III covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X @Jerryhump3 or email him at [email protected]