Emotions ran high after the game for Auburn football following its 17-7 loss to Vanderbilt at Jordan-Hare Stadium. A brief brawl ensued at midfield, with the teams later hugging, leading to the players being separated.

Now, as the Tigers enter a week before their next contest against ULM, Payton Thorne challenges 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 hard. First of all, you look at our defense, I thought they played outstanding. They played well enough to win. He held a good team to 17 points, and they had a short field on one of those, for sure. Credit to them for continuing to show up,” Thorne said.

“Offensively, we just have to finish drives. When we go over 50, we have to do a good job of capitalizing on that. But in a bye week, we have to be smart with our time and smart with what we do. Stay focused on the latest games we have here.”

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

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

A week removed from his historic performance against Kentucky, Jarquez Hunter finished with just 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 are a lot of moving parts, for sure. If each guy does his job and everything comes together, then you usually end up in the end zone. We don’t have to do that. It’s something we obviously have to focus on.”

Auburn now finds itself in a dying situation.

One more loss means the Tigers will be bowl ineligible. If they can somehow win, they will go bowl for the second consecutive season.

On paper, ULM should be the Tigers’ warm-up game before facing Texas A&M and Alabama. However, given how this season has gone for Auburn, it’s hard not to consider the option of them falling to ULM.

Thorne shared his message with the group to make sure they weren’t on the losing side of the ULM game.

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

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