FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Gus Malzahn may have provided an unfortunate sneak preview for Saturday’s lackluster performance when he expressed mild concern after what he saw as a disappointing Tuesday practice.

After the No. 17 Tigers’ 44-23 loss to Arkansas in front of a late-arriving 72,559 fans, a handful of players pinpointed a ho-hum week of practice that left them “unfocused,” “unprepared” and “flat” against the game Razorbacks.

“We feel like we didn’t prepare well enough for this game, and we’re going to get after it this week,” offensive tackle Lee Ziemba said. “It was just a little wake-up call.”

And with that call comes an expected goodbye from national pundits who started paying attention to the Tigers (5-1, 2-1 SEC) just in time to see them lose their first game of the Gene Chizik era.

“These are somewhat uncharted waters for us right now,” Chizik said. “I’ve got a lot of faith in our guys as we’re bringing them in and building this program the way we want to build it. I have no doubt that they’re going to respond really well.

“We got beat by a good football team, and we deserved to get beat. We didn’t play well.”

With the national spotlight fully shining on them for the first time all season, the Tigers played at their absolute worst in all three phases of the game.

Against one of the worst defenses not only in the SEC, but the nation, Auburn mustered a season-low in points and total yards of offense (385). It gets worse when the first half goes under further examination, as the Tigers had more penalties (seven) and punts (six) than first downs (five), while putting up just 108 yards of offense.

Against one of the better offenses in the nation, the Tigers made the Razorbacks and Ryan Mallett (274 yards, two touchdowns) look as good as advertised. And they even helped tailback Michael Smith (145 rushing yards and a touchdown) snap out of an early season funk.

And after an optimistic effort against Tennessee last week, the Tigers’ special teams regressed, particularly on kick returns, where they allowed Dennis Johnson to roll up 145 yards on three returns and fumbled on one of their own.

Sprinkle in three turnovers, and it’s tough to figure how the Tigers didn’t lose by more.

“You can’t do the things that we did today and win a game against a very, very good team,” Chizik said. “We did all the classic things that you can’t do, certainly on the road, and certainly in this league.

“You can’t win any SEC games doing the things we did today as a team.”

Somehow, through all the mistakes and moments of sheer Arkansas dominance that left Auburn down 27-3 at the half and 34-3 early in the third quarter, the Tigers put themselves briefly back into the game by doing what they did in their first five wins.

Ben Tate amassed 136 of his season-high 184 rushing yards in the third quarter, including a 60-yard touchdown run and another from 1 yard, set up by a 60-yard reverse from Terrell Zachery. Twenty unanswered points later, Auburn was within two scores, 34-23, and had just a little momentum on its side.

“It’s what Auburn does best,” Ziemba said of the the Tigers’ 207 rushing yards in the third quarter. “It was working for a while. But in the end, you have to get the job done, and we didn’t.”

Johnson’s 70-yard kickoff return to end the third quarter, which set up Broderick Green’s second touchdown of the game, reaffirmed that one good quarter does not an SEC victory make.

“It only takes one. In that case it did,” Chizik said. “We had some momentum, and they brought that thing back a pretty good ways.”

The lopsided loss will more than likely drop Auburn out of the top 25 in all the major polls. And in the minutes after the Tigers walked off the field without a victory for the first time this season, it was already apparent that it had dropped them a little closer to humbled reality.

“You’re going to see a whole different team from what you’ve seen,” tailback Onterio McCalebb said. “We’re going to go out there and practice hard. We’re not going to be not focused in practice. We’re going to come out (even harder) because of this loss right here.”

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