South Carolina’s disappointing loss at Florida might have erased any hope of the Gamecocks getting a bowl game in the Sunshine State. Instead, they might be headed to North Carolina (Belk Bowl) or Tennessee (Liberty Bowl).

The loss kept the Gamecocks (5-4) from clinching a bowl berth, and probably makes an attractive bowl game a long shot, unless they beat Chattanooga, Clemson and Akron.

But what went wrong? Was it the Swiss cheese run defense, which gave up chunks of yards to the Gators, or the play-calling, as the offense seemed to suddenly sputter late? How could you reconcile that result after the “All gas, no brakes,” preseason battle cry.

After a second look at the game, coach Will Muschamp said he was confident in the offensive play-calling. Logically, it seemed that something changed. The Gamecocks had 363 yards and 31 points in the first half, but just 23 yards in the fourth quarter when they were shut out.

“There have been some questions about the play-calling offensively there late,” he said, according to audio posted by SportsTalkSC.com. “There was never any conversation about changing what we had been doing. The only conversation was to keep doing what we had been doing. There’s nothing we did different in the second half. It’s all based on results. We didn’t get the results we wanted.”

Muschamp praised QB Jake Bentley and offensive coordinator Bryan McClendon.

The Gamecocks are sixth in the SEC in yards after Saturday’s game, and average 410.7 per game. They are tied for fifth in the conference in scoring with 31 points per game. With those numbers, it is difficult to criticize, maybe for the first time in recent memory, a Muschamp offense.

But in total defense in the SEC, only Vanderbilt and Ole Miss are worse than the Gamecocks, who are giving up 418.3 yards per game. What’s more, the secondary doesn’t appear to be getting significantly healthier this week for Chattanooga. Though South Carolina could probably afford to wait on borderline injuries for next week’s Clemson game.

“Too many missed tackles, and that’s been something we’ve been saying week to week,” Muschamp said. “I thought we lost some one-on-one battles. When you go one-on-one and have a draw, the offense wins. We’ve got to defeat blocks. I thought as the game went on, our inability to get off the field defensively, we wore out. It was pretty evident there in the fourth quarter.”

South Carolina was without LB Bryson Allen-Williams, but Muschamp also revealed Saturday that the key defender would be out the rest of the season, a rather shocking update because his injury was believed to be fairly minor even days earlier. Muschamp said he hadn’t discussed the NFL Draft with Allen-Williams.

So making noticeable improvements on defense appears to be a tall order because Muschamp and the players have said they work on tackling each day in practice. Nine games in and the coaching staff can’t fix ongoing mistakes?

“Too many times, guys stopping their feet. The issues we’re having with tackling is on the second level. Whether it’s linebacker or safety, that’s been the main issue all year,” Muschamp said. “We’re missing too many second-level tackles, which is creating too many explosive runs.

“In today’s day and age of football, you’re going to be in some space situations. You’ve got to make plays in space, and the worst thing you could do in space is stop your feet. You got to bring your feet on contact, and then too many times yesterday, we had guys trying to butt guys down and not wrap up and it’s been coached, obviously it’s not been coached enough. … You’ve got to wrap big backs up, you cannot butt guys down on our level, and we made that mistake again.”

Muschamp is in danger of losing whatever coaching equity he gained by overachieving his first two years in Columbia. He dropped to 1-9 against ranked teams, and this season alone, South Carolina has dropped three games against ranked teams. With veteran offensive players across the board, finishing fourth in the SEC East in a third year of a coaching tenure is alarming.