Words weren’t kind to Auburn’s receiving room following the game against No. 1 Georgia two weeks ago.

And the game film wasn’t a lick nicer the position group.

Perhaps the most belabored stat from Auburn’s near-upset of the nation’s top-ranked team was the fact that of Payton Thorne’s nine completions, six hit the hands of his target.

“He had nine incompletions, and I literally think six of them could have gone either way,” Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze said Monday when looking back at the Georgia game. “I’m certainly not saying they were total drops or anything like that, but there are chances for us to make plays that, again, put us in position to get points or convert the chains and keep our defense off the field.”

Auburn’s wide receivers took a lot of flak after the narrow loss to Georgia.

Even LSU head coach Brian Kelly took an indirect shot at Auburn’s receiving corps during his press conference on Monday morning.

“I think if (Freeze) had Nabors and he had Thomas, they’d be throwing the ball a lot,” Kelly said, seemingly tossing shade at Auburn’s receivers.

After a week of being a whipping post for criticism, Auburn’s receivers might’ve spent some time during the off week with their tails tucked between their legs.

But by the sounds of it, that attitude has since passed.

“They all taking it more personal now, just knowing that ‘Oh, people are saying our receivers aren’t good. This and that.’,” said Auburn tight end Rivaldo Fairweather. “They all taking it personally and putting their head down and going harder.”

Fairweather, who has been a major factor in Auburn’s passing game, said Tuesday that he and the rest of Auburn’s receivers focused on the “small things” during the bye week last week.

“We can improve in the top of our route, like getting out of our breaks faster,” Fairweather said. “And being quarterback-friendly, like coming back to the ball and helping the quarterbacks get more completions and just running our routes at full speed.”

There were moments throughout fall camp in which Freeze alluded to Auburn’s receivers “loafing” during their routes.

After the season-opener against UMass, Freeze went on to gripe about his receivers not having a firm grasp on landmarks and spacing during their routes.

All those issues seemed to accumulate against Georgia, which was the third game against a Power 5 team this season that Auburn neglected to pass for at least 100 yards. The Tigers passed for just 94 yards against Cal, 56 yards against Texas A&M and 88 yards against Georgia.

Now, to be fair to the receivers, Auburn’s sputtering passing attack isn’t solely due to its receivers.

There have been times in which Auburn’s quarterback play has been abysmal and times in which coaching decisions have been questionable.

But none of that warranted a complete, midseason, flip-it-all-on-its-head fix.

“No philosophy change,” Freeze said of the offense coming out of the bye week.

Instead, Freeze says the focus was matching the right personnel with the right plays in the right situations.

“Whatever we feel strongly about in that, then let’s do it over and over and over and over and over again, until we are really, really confident and really, really good at that,” Freeze said.

And in this week in particular as Auburn sets its sights on a road game at LSU, if there were ever a time for Payton Thorne and the Tigers’ offense to establish some kind of identity through the air against a Power 5 team, it’s against the LSU Tigers on Saturday night.

While LSU’s Top-25 ranking and homefield advantage in one of the tougher places to play in the SEC likely doesn’t do Auburn any favors, LSU’s relatively bad passing defense might.

LSU’s defense ranks No. 127 out of 133 teams in the FBS in terms of total yards allowed per game. The Bayou Bengals also rank No. 112 in points allowed per game.

Ole Miss, Arkansas and Missouri all exploited LSU’s struggling pass defense as they combined for just north of 1,000 total passing yards and nine passing touchdowns.

All of this is said to emphasize the possibility of Auburn’s offense finally snapping its own streak of missing the 100-yards-of-passing mark against Power 5 opponents.

And fortunately for Auburn, despite a week with lots of outside noise after the performance against Georgia, the receivers’ room understands there is still plenty that lies in front of them.

“I always tell them that we got a lot more games to play. It’s not over yet,” Fairweather said of his message to his fellow pass-catching teammates. “Anybody could still go for 1,000 yards. Anybody could still do anything. I just continue to tell them to stay confident and that it’s all going to come their way soon.”

But will it all come their way as soon as Saturday night under the lights of LSU’s Tiger Stadium?

If the answer to that ends up being no, Auburn could be in for a long, long second half of the season.