In the bottom line world of college football, Auburn is where it was expected to be - at worst - at the midpoint of the season and faces far greater challenges in its next six games.

The Tigers (5-1, 3-0 SEC) won every game they were favored to win, with all three SEC games being dominant blowouts, and lost as a road underdog at Clemson due to a pitiful offensive display but were nonetheless competitive thanks to a tremendous defense.

Since then, the wins have piled up as Auburn's offense appears to have settled in. The Tigers have scored at least 44 points in each of the last three games, with Kerryon Johnson racking up yards and touchdowns and Jarrett Stidham completing over 79 percent of his passes in the last four games.

"We knew we were underachieving the first couple of weeks," said Johnson, who has come back from a left hamstring injury to score 11 of his nation-leading 12 touchdowns in the last three games. "That's almost 50 points for three straight weeks; that's a pretty good stride. ... We just have to maintain, maintain and improve."

Auburn's defense has been flat-out dominant, ranking in the top 25 nationally against the run (22), pass (20), pass efficiency defense (19), total defense (13) and scoring (6). The Tigers didn't allow more than 14 points in a game until Ole Miss' starters punched in some meaningless scores against second and third-teamers.

"I'm extremely proud of our defense," Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. "They're doing a super job. I mean they've played outstanding defense the first half of the season. I would compare it to any group in the country. They're got an edge about them and I'm glad they're playing for Auburn."

The task will be more difficult in the second half of a heavily backloaded schedule.

The combined records of Auburn's first six opponents is 15-16, 12-13 among the five FBS teams, compared to 25-9 for its remaining six foes.

Auburn got to feast on three of the 12 worst scoring defenses in the country in its first six games, but will face three in the top 26, starting with LSU, where it hasn't won since 1999, in the first of three straight SEC road games in the second half of the season.

"It's going to be a long stretch not playing (at home), but we're ready for it," said Stidham, who leads the SEC and ranks in the top 10 nationally in both completion percentage and pass efficiency. "We're a very confident team right now. We're gelling at the right time, but we're not complacent. Obviously, we've had some really good games the last couple of weeks. That's great and all, but we got LSU this week and we're looking forward to that."

Safety Tray Matthews said the team is "excited about the future" now that the offense, defense and special teams are all performing well.

Everything is still in play for a team with SEC championship and playoff aspirations, but just as Auburn climbed into the top 10 in the AP poll, it can tumble with an unexpected loss and the Tigers should be favored in at least each of the next three games.

"We knew we had a chance to be a pretty good team in the offseason," Malzahn said. "Got off to a tough start, had a few growing pains in some areas. You can see them starting to come together as a complete team. Now we haven't arrived yet - OK, by any means - but you can see us, our team is trying to improve each week. They're practicing extremely hard with urgency and they're getting up for every game so far.

"The challenge is we've got to continue to do that, because very few teams around the country can do that. That's our challenge; that's our challenge to our coaches, that's our challenge to our players. We're going to keep the hammer down, we're going to continue to send that message."

The first test of Auburn's proverbial hammer comes at Red Stick.

James Crepea is an Auburn beat reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @JamesCrepea.