Auburn moved up four spots in the ESPN College Football Index despite losing 21-17 against LSU on Saturday at Jordan-Hare. The Tigers are 48th in the latest FPI after dropping to 52nd following the previous week’s overtime win against Missouri.

ESPN developed the College Football Power Index in 2013 to predict game and season outcomes. FPI also measures team strength on offense, defense, and special teams. Auburn was ranked #11 in the preseason. The Tigers to #27 after beating Mercer and to #40 after a comeback win against San Jose State before losing by 29 points against Penn State.

Auburn (3-2, 1-1 SEC) plays #2 Georgia (5-0, 2-0) on Saturday (2:30 CT CBS) for the team’s first road game. It’ll also be quarterback Robby Ashford’s third start and his first in hostile territory.

“You’re going to go into a hostile environment; you’re not going to be favored when you get in there,” Harsin said. “That’s part of the mental side of playing that position. That goes for everybody, and then the noise becomes the factor. I think for Robby, it’s still to continue playing within himself. He’s learning; he’s growing, he’s developing.”

FPI gives Georgia a 93.9 chance of beating Auburn, and Vegas sportsbooks have the Tigers as a 29.5-point underdog at Sanford Stadium.

Auburn entered the season with a projected 7.4 wins to 4.6 losses record. Five games into the season, the projected win total dropped to 5.2 wins versus 6.8 losses, with a less than 40% chance of winning six or more games this year.

A recurring theme of Auburn’s losses under Bryan Harsin’s tenure is a shortage of second-half scoring. Auburn blew a 17-point lead against LSU and scored zero points in the second half. Auburn didn’t score a point in the second half during the Missouri win.

“I mean, it’s really not one thing, in particular, that’s just the glaring reason why. We all have to improve on and get better at things,” Harsin said about the second-half scoring. “And then our adjustments coming out of the half, we’ve got to find ways to continue to put points on the board. It’s not just the half of football; you’ve got to play all four quarters.”

Not scoring in the second half correlates to Auburn’s 87th ranking (40.8%) in offensive efficiency, whereas Georgia ranks 10th at 85.5%. Auburn faces a Georgia defense that’s fifth in the country, according to the ESPN FPI.

“Defensively, they’re top five in the SEC in every category. They lost a lot of really good players last year. They’ve replaced those players with some really good players,” Harsin said. “It starts with the front seven, those guys on the defensive line and the linebacker position, play fast, physical. Those guys have done well all season long. The back end is very strong. I think those guys do a very good job in coverage, and then they’re also going to be involved in the run game as well.”

Anders Carlson missed field goals at the end of the first half against Missouri and last week versus LSU. His misses factor into Auburn’s special teams’ 48.4 efficiency rating, which is 78th in the nation.

‘We have faith in Anders,” Harsin said.“That’s not anything from practice. He’s been very good in practice. Anders is a consistent guy, and we still believe in him.”

Auburn has an uphill battle against Georgia based on the metrics. However, UGA trailed most of the game against Missouri and struggled against Kent State. An Auburn win would require the Tigers to reverse a trend of getting outscored in the second half.

Harsin believes it’s possible.

“We’ve got to focus on us,” Harsin said. We’ve got to make sure that we’re doing things on the offensive side of the ball that we can control and then just handle the environment when we’re there.”