AUBURN − Auburn football will now need to win out if it wants to make a bowl trip this season.

The Tigers' bowl hopes went from a small possibility to unlikely after a 17-7 loss to Vanderbilt on Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium. They now sit with six losses, meaning another loss will eliminate them from bowl consideration unless there are not enough eligible teams and they sit at 5-7. The Tigers (3-6, 1-5 SEC) have a tough path to a bowl game, needing to now just their first win streak of the season but a three-game win streak with upsets over two ranked foes.

Offensive lineman Dillon Wade said the Tigers already knew their backs were against the wall and adopted a must-win attitude after their fifth loss against Missouri. It worked for one week with the win over Kentucky, but it appeared to be missing Saturday.

"Since the fifth loss we received, its been playoff mentality. We've been looking at every game like an elimination round. We're pretty hurt to lose this game right here because we knew we needed to win," Wade said.

The Tigers' path to a bowl game starts again Nov. 16 with a home game against Louisiana Monroe (11:45 a.m., SEC Network). From there, it gets much tougher with top-ten Texas A&M coming to the Plains. After that a trip to Tuscaloosa for the Iron Bowl awaits.

The Tigers pushed the Crimson Tide to the brink but came up short in last year's 27-24 loss that saw Alabama convert a fourth-and-31 situation to score the winning touchdown. Alabama has won by an average of 25 points over the last four Iron Bowls in Tuscaloosa. Auburn hasn't won there since Cam Newton led a comeback in 2010. Alabama has beaten Auburn four years in a row.

As far as playing in a bowl game, Auburn can't afford to even look past ULM as last year's loss to New Mexico State showed. It's something Tigers players know.

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"We got to win out. It starts with the next game, which is in two weeks. You can't worry about the next two after that, so we need to win that one to keep it alive and then the next one and the next one," quarterback Payton Thorne said.

For wide receiver Rivaldo Fairweather, who had the Tigers' only touchdown vs. Vanderbilt, there's no need to change the mentality going into final three games. Auburn holds a belief that it can make a bowl game.

"The mentality is that we will win out and make a bowl game. That's always the mentality, because we're not trying to lose no games," Fairweather said. "We're going to go in the lab this week and make sure we win out just to make a bowl game."

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: What is Auburn football mindset needing to win out for a bowl appearance