I looked back and graded the offense this morning. You can find that here.

Now let's look back at the defensive performance against South Carolina on Saturday before we move on to the matchup with Mississippi State.

This group gets a C from me.

The total pressure numbers aren't bad, one sack, two QB hits, 15 pressures. That pressure total is pretty good.

But for a second consecutive week, the pass rush was facing an offensive line that had been incompetent at times this season and the Tigers needed to take advantage by getting to LaNorris Sellers more than once.

It's also hard not to think this grade would be a B if Johnny Walker Jr. had been able to finish that sack on the final drive. I don't blame Walker at all, Sellers made an incredible play, sometimes the other team just does that. But that one play definitely affects the grade a lot.

Walker ended with one sack and seven hurries, I guess that final miss counts as a hurry instead of a QB hit, which was by far the best day for a rusher. Chris McClellan had one QB hit and one hurry, Corey Flagg had two hurries and Zion Young had three hurries. Not a great day against an offensive line that had really struggled, though they didn't do terrible allowing Sellers to escape for big gains, he had just 19 yards on four scrambles.

I was expecting to grade this group lower off my memory of the game, but I'm going to go with a B.

South Carolina had only 118 rushing yards as a team when you take out the lost yards on the one sack, with Raheim Sanders totaling just 53 and Sellers adding 45.

The Tigers held the Gamecocks to less team rushing yards than Sanders had either of the past two weeks and keeping Sellers at 10 yards for his longest run is jus the third time this year he's been kept from a longer rush.

Tackling in run defense was still an issue, Kristian Williams missed one, Nick Deloach missed one in run defense and Marvin Burks missed two in run defense. Not great, but not terrible considering Sanders has forced 37 missed tackles this year and Sellers has forced 26.

Here's the real bad one. F.

Sellers had career highs of 353 yards and five touchdowns through the air. He hadn't had more than 244 yard or two touchdowns, so he more than doubled both of his previous highs.

Not great.

No defender forced more than one incompletion.

Daylan Carnell allowed three catches on three targets for 46 yards, mostly coming on one 43-yard catch.

Chuck Hicks allowed one catch for 38 yards on two targets.

Deloach allowed five catches on six targets for 121 yards, including a 47-yard catch. He did bat down a pass for a bright spot.

Dreyden Norwood allowed two catches on two targets, he was not the targeted defender on his interception.

Burks allowed two catches on three targets for 25 yards, Corey Flagg allowed three catches on three targets for 32 yards, Triston Newson allowed two catches on three targets for 39 yards and Caleb Flagg allowed one catch on two targets for five yards.

I don't think I need to remind you how often South Carolina pass catchers were running without a defender anywhere near them.

The Tigers also missed 11 tackles in pass coverage. Just a bad, bad performance in pass coverage that ended up losing the game.

The defense gets a D from me.

The run defense saves it from being an F.

Poor tackling, poor coverage, not taking advantage of a weak offensive line to get after Sellers. The Tigers seemed to have really put the defense together at halftime with a very good third quarter and start to the fourth, but the exact same issues from the first half coming back to be what lost the game on the final drive means no grade increase for halftime adjustments.

Just bad.

You can tell me your thoughts about the defensive performance on the story thread, or head on over to the Tiger Walk to discuss so much more.