COLUMBIA, S.C. — A week after Will Rogers turned in arguably the worst performance of his lengthy Mississippi State tenure, the senior quarterback was in top form Saturday night, throwing for a career-high 487 yards.

Senior receiver Lideatrick “Tulu” Griffin was responsible for more than half of that total, setting a single-game school record with 256 receiving yards on just seven catches. But despite those historic showings, MSU’s defense had few answers for a balanced South Carolina offensive attack and the Bulldogs fell 37-30 in front of a lively crowd of more than 78,000 at Williams-Brice Stadium.

“They converted touchdowns in the red zone,” MSU head coach Zach Arnett said. “We knew we were going to give up some yards and maybe play a little more conservative to protect against some of the deep ones from their really good receiving corps. Obviously we gave up a few deep ones, and so we had to play a little bit more bend-don’t-break. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out.”

The Bulldogs (2-2, 0-2 Southeastern Conference) could not have drawn up much of a worse start. After allowing 239 receiving yards to LSU’s Malik Nabers last week, MSU again was burned by the opposition’s best wideout. Xavier Legette showcased his game-breaking speed on the Gamecocks’ first possession, outracing cornerback DeCarlos Nicholson and the entire Bulldog secondary on a 76-yard catch-and-run to open the scoring and cap a 98-yard drive.

South Carolina (2-2, 1-1) outdid itself the next time it got the ball, driving 99 yards for a touchdown. Veteran linebacker and MSU co-captain Nathaniel “Bookie” Watson committed a pair of big penalties to keep the drive going — a horse-collar tackle on a third down and an offside call on a fourth down. Gamecocks quarterback Spencer Rattler then hit Trey Knox on a rollout for a 17-yard touchdown to make it 14-0 South Carolina.

“They’ve got some good players, great coaches, and they hit some explosive (plays) on us,” said linebacker Jett Johnson, who made a game-high 14 tackles. “We’ve got to obviously eliminate those and just play harder. Some of it was unforced errors by us. To just drive the length of the field like that, there’s really no excuse for us.”

But just as Saturday began to look like a repeat of the LSU game, Rogers and the Bulldogs’ offense found its footing. Rogers faked a handoff to running back Jo’Quavious “Woody” Marks and heaved a perfect spiral to a streaking Griffin, who blew past the secondary and caught the pass in stride for a 65-yard touchdown that quieted the crowd considerably.

MSU’s defense followed up on the quick score with a three-and-out, and a 47-yard reception by Griffin moved the ball into the red zone. Three plays later, after a holding penalty on third down negated a Marks rushing touchdown, Rogers rolled to his right and looked for Zavion Thomas in the end zone, but defensive back David Spaulding picked off the pass at the 2-yard line. Spaulding had gone out of bounds during the play, but was ruled to have reestablished himself in bounds prior to making the interception.

Still, the defense made another stop after one first down, and the offense again struck quickly. Rogers hit Griffin deep on after another play action fake for 60 yards, and Marks plunged forward for a 7-yard score on the next play to tie the game at 14.

“The (cornerback) who was over me, he was always playing outside,” Griffin said. “I had to make it seem like I wanted to go behind him, but I really wasn’t. That’s when I was just beating him over the top.”

The Gamecocks, who held the ball for more than 20 minutes in the first half, put together another lengthy drive that took up almost the entire rest of the half and finished in the end zone on a direct snap to running back Dakereon Joyner for three yards.

But Rogers had just enough time left to drive the Bulldogs far enough to give freshman kicker Kyle Ferrie a 54-yard field goal opportunity. The kick came up short, but an illegal formation penalty gave the youngster another chance from 49 yards away, and this time he drilled it to make it a three-point game at the break.

“A couple play-action shots we had in the game plan this week, we felt like we could hit,” Rogers said. “Both of those plays were in our offense. We just felt really confident with some of the play-action stuff.”

South Carolina started the second half even more explosively than it did the first as Rattler, who completed his first 17 passes and 18 of 20 in all, hit Legette deep down the left sideline for a 75-yard touchdown. Legette beat Nicholson again in single coverage and no safety came over to help.

MSU came right back, with Rogers completing four passes for 69 yards to set up a 1-yard run on a beautiful play fake by backup quarterback Mike Wright. Later in the quarter, safety Shawn Preston Jr. forced a fumble from Joyner that Watson recovered, leading to a game-tying 23-yard field goal from Ferrie.

But with the Bulldogs down by three early in the fourth, Rogers was stripped by Jordan Strachan as he prepared to throw and Judge Collier jumped on the loose ball, returning it to the MSU 22. Three plays later, Mario Anderson bowled over a pair of defensive backs for a 9-yard touchdown run, putting the visitors behind by two scores for the third time.

Rogers kept on throwing, and the Bulldogs did make it a one-possession game on Ferrie’s 47-yard field goal with just over two minutes left. MSU failed to recover the ensuing onside kick, though, and the Gamecocks ran out the clock from there.

“I’m really proud of the competitive spirit and fight they showed,” Arnett said. “They very easily could have put their heads down and quit, and it wouldn’t have been much of a football game. They ought to be able to draw confidence from the way they moved the ball and hit a lot of explosive plays. Unfortunately we gave up too many explosive plays, too.”