Go back even five years ago, and the first thing out of someone who watched one Texas game back in 2009 would tell you is Will Muschamp is a defensive genius.

The reputation was well earned for Muschamp, who developed some of the best defenses in the sport for a decade at places like LSU, Texas and Florida.

Ask someone who’s watched any South Carolina game this year if Muschamp is a defensive mastermind and they’ll ask if you’re talking about two different Will Muschamps.

Forget the last three weeks, the Gamecocks (2-5) have been terrible defensively all season in year five under one of the more highly-regarded defensive minds in the sport since the mid-2000s.

The Gamecocks have allowed 257 points through seven games, the most in the team’s first seven games since at least 2000 when Sports Reference’s database started, and things have looked dreadful the last three weeks as the season hits a boiling point.

Also see: Instant analysis from Saturday's loss

“I wouldn’t say we’ve lost confidence, but we know we need to get our junk together,” linebacker Ernest Jones said. “ We are playing not good defense right now.”

Muschamp and every player who spoke to the media this week downplayed the significance but knew just how important this weekend’s game was for the Gamecocks and that ever-growing target on Muschamp’s back.

A win, and the pressure gets alleviated for a week; a loss and the CrockPot goes from high to having the knob snapped off.

Even knowing that, it was the defense, Muschamp’s calling card, that let the Gamecocks down in a 59-42 loss in Oxford, the latest in a long line of defensive ineptitude.

Ole Miss put up 59 points, the most by a SEC team against South Carolina since 1995, scoring on nine of its 12 offensive drives. One of those 12 drives, though, involved the Rebels running out the clock to end the game.

“It is concerning, there’s no doubt about that,” Muschamp said. “We have to go back and look at it.”

The Rebels threw for 513 yards, averaging an ungodly 16 yards per pass attempt with quarterback Matt Corral completed 28 of his 32 pass attempts.

Of those 28 completions, 18 went for at least 10 yards; eight went for at least 20 with a 39-yarder, 52-yarder and a 91-yarder.

Also see: What Will Muschamp said about the loss

"We came in wanting to mix things up. We played some zone and he was very accurate tonight,” Muschamp said. “In man to man we got beat some in man coverage. It’s tough when you get beat in man and you play zone and he’s very accurate with the football. We have to tighten up some zones. They had really good skill players that we had a hard time matching up with in man coverage.”

Over the last three weeks, Muschamp’s defense in year five of his tenure has given up 159 points (53 points per game) with teams averaging 7.8 yards per play, 13.1 yards per pass attempt and five yards per rush.

Of the 33 defensive drives they’ve had, opponents scored on 24 and are averaging 4.8 points per drive.

“It’s a team game. We have to play better team football to compliment each other. We certainly didn’t do that in Baton Rouge and hold up our end defensively,” Muschamp said. “We didn’t do that tonight. Offensively we played extremely well. We have to play much better team football as far as those things are concerned.”

To say it’s concerning that in year five the defining quality of a head coach is so vehemently lacking is an understatement, and changes—whether wholesale or minimal—need to happen.

Muschamp said Travaris Robinson is still calling the defense right now, but they will evaluate things Sunday in postgame analyisis.

“He’s still calling the defense and we need to evaluate where we are,” Muschamp said. “We meet tomorrow.”