Though they didn’t play well, the Auburn Tigers had arguably the best win in college football this weekend. The Tigers defeated Kansas State 20-14 on Thursday night in Manhattan in a hostile environment.

Auburn rushed for just 128 yards on 45 attempts on the evening as the offense was stymied by a pesky Wildcat defense. K-State played very fundamental, disciplined defense against the Auburn spread attack. The win came on the shoulders of Ellis Johnson’s defense and the arm of senior quarterback Nick Marshall.

It was the best performance yet under Johnson as defensive coordinator. The Tigers gave up just 285 yards of total offense, 245 of which came through the air. Auburn also forced three Kansas State turnovers.

“We’re steadily making progress,” Johnson told AL.com on Sunday evening. “We’ve got some young players in some key roles. We’re not a real experienced defense, but at least they’ve been in the system another year, so it’s starting to help us in that respect. But, they’re improving not only by the physicality, they’re improving on their assignments, their alignments, technique, their stances, just little things that make a football player better. We still need to improve in a lot of those areas.”

Johnson and the rest of the coaching staff were concerned about quarterback Jake Waters who led the Wildcats in both passing and rushing. But Johnson felt his unit rose to the occasion.

“I thought Kansas State was, overall, the most complete team and it was a tough environment to go over there and have to play,” Johnson said. “It’d be hard to say it was definitely the best game but I think we played on a level we had to against a really good opponent.”

On the other side of the football, however, offensive coordinator Rhett Lashlee was not as pleased.

“We didn’t execute worth a crap,” Lashlee told the media on Sunday evening. “When you watch the film, on almost every play you can say, ‘That’s not what we do. That’s not our brand of football.'”

Gus Malzahn’s team now turns to Skip Holtz and Louisiana Tech (2-2) who comes to the Plains for Homecoming. Auburn opened the week as a 34-point favorite over the Bulldogs who lost to FCS Northwestern State Saturday on a last second field goal.

Quarterback Cody Sokol and the Tech offense presents a formidable challenge for Auburn with their multiple looks that range from power to spread formations.

“As I watched them, they’re capable of being very multiple,” Johnson said after practice on Sunday. “They’ve got a good quarterback, and they can line up and run power football. They give you more variation from power to spread than anybody we’ve played.”