Auburn’s offense was supposed to use Saturday as a showcase.

That’s why Mercer was paid $450,000 by Auburn, after all: to be easy fodder on homecoming weekend for the Tigers. Only the Bears didn’t get the memo about sticking to the script.

Instead, the Tigers found themselves in a fight until midway through the final period, leading just 17-10 before running back Kamryn Pettway punched in the game’s final score in a 14-point win.

It wasn’t as if Auburn couldn’t move the ball, as it gained 510 yards on offense. But the Tigers simply couldn’t take care of the ball, committing a whopping five turnovers.

Not surprisingly, it was the key point of discussion in coach Gus Malzahn’s postgame press conference.

"If you take the turnovers away, I think we'd be feeling really good." - Gus Malzahn

“We got the victory today. Obviously, it was really sloppy,” Malzahn said. “What stands out to me the most is the five turnovers, which is very uncharacteristic. I can’t remember the last time we had five turnovers. We had a critical penalty down there in the red zone. If you take the turnovers away, I think we’d be feeling really good.”

On the other sideline, Mercer coach Bobby Lamb couldn’t have felt any better.

“I cannot say enough about our defense and the effort they gave,” Lamb said. “They were flying around the ball making plays, and they forced five turnovers. It wasn’t easy for Auburn to score when they did score. Auburn never dreamed that their tailback would come in and have to carry the ball 30-something times, but that’s the way our defense plays. They fly around. It’s like that in practice. It is a hard yard to gain against our defense.”

Of the Tigers’ five turnovers Saturday, four were fumbles.

“We’re going to have to look at that,” Malzahn said. “It’s obviously an issue, and it’s uncharacteristic. It kind of snowballed on us, and I think that three of those were in the red zone. That’s a tough pill to swallow there, and we’re going to have to correct that.”

Regardless of when and where they occurred, Lamb wasn’t going to play semantics.

The Bears pride themselves on forcing turnovers.

“We have plastered all over our building, ‘The Ball Is The Issue,’ ” Lamb said. “We strive on takeaways. Those balls were ripped out. We try to practice stripping the ball.”

Auburn receiver Ryan Davis said the Tigers’ lack of ball security was frustrating to work through.

“One happened and a second one happened, and it kept happening,” Davis said, referring to a pair of his own fumbles Saturday, one of which Auburn recovered. “But you just have to concentrate and hold on to the ball. It’s all fundamentals. Just got to take care of the ball.”

The Tigers’ other, non-fumble turnover came on a third-quarter interception from quarterback Jarrett Stidham.

But that was one of his lone mistakes Saturday, as he completed 32 of his 37 attempts for 364 yards. His 32 completions were second-most in a game in Auburn history, trailing only Patrick Nix’s 34 against Arkansas in 1995. And his sterling completion percentage of 86.5 was the second-best single-game outing by an SEC quarterback with 30-plus attempts, behind only Tim Tebow’s 88.6 percent (31 of 35) showing against Cincinnati in the 2009 Sugar Bowl.

Stidham said he viewed Saturday as a step forward and that the offense executed the game plan exactly as it was drawn up.

“We ran the ball well. We threw the ball well. We just turned it over too much,” Stidham said. “That’s the downside. … It just kind of puts a damper on things whenever you turn the ball over five times. We just have to get better from here.”

Yet for all the talk of turnovers, Malzahn found another area that wasn’t up to par Saturday: the running game. The Tigers finished with 146 rushing yards on 43 attempts — which comes out to a less-than-stellar 3.4 yards per attempt.

“We have to run the ball better,” Malzahn said. “We’ve got to solve that one.”

Not that Pettway — a fourth-year junior running back who carried 34 times for 128 yards and three touchdowns — is worried, feeling improvement will come in due time.

“The offensive line is kind of young, but they’re good,” he said. “Each and every week they come to work. We are just getting better each week.”

Pettway was every bit as optimistic about the offense as a whole.

“We have confidence,” he said. “We made a lot of mistakes that are fixable. We had five turnovers, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.”