Ole Miss running back Tremaine Turner (47) runs past Oklahoma State’s Pagitte McGee (41) and eyes Jon Holland, left, en route to a touchdown run in the Rebels’ 31-28 Cotton Bowl victory over the Cowboys on Friday. (Melanie Duncan ThortisThe Vicksburg Post)

[1/3/04]DALLAS Eli Manning’s career at Ole Miss came to a fitting end. Never one to crave the attention, Manning shared the spotlight with two of his teammates in his final collegiate game.

Tremaine Turner piled up a career-high in rushing yards, Josh Cooper picked up a pair of big sacks and Manning was his usual efficient self as the 16th-ranked Rebels survived a late scare to defeat No. 21 Oklahoma State 31-28 in the Cotton Bowl.

Manning earned Offensive Player of the Game honors with 259 yards passing and three total touchdowns. He played his role of field general perfectly, reading the defensive sets and often changing plays at the line to confuse OSU.

Many of the audibles were runs for Turner, who powered his way through the Cowboy defense for 133 yards on 20 carries.

“Eli’s so smart,” Turner said. “He recognizes the defense so well, he put us in position to run the best plays.”

The Cowboys (9-4) did their part to stay in the game. OSU wide receiver Rashaun Woods, who earlier this season set an NCAA record with seven touchdowns in a game, added his name to the Cotton Bowl annals with a bowl-record 223 receiving yards.

Ole Miss (10-3) matched up sophomore defensive back Travis Johnson on Woods, and he was often left on an island in single coverage.

“They adjusted to get him in great position to make plays, and he made plays,” Johnson said. “I didn’t make the plays a lot of the time, but I think I did good.”

But Oklahoma State never could get its running game going. Entering with an average of 227 rushing yards per game, the Cowboys were held to 138 yards on the ground. The dynamic duo of Tatum Bell and Vernand Morency averaged only 3.6 yards per carry for 105 yards.

“We felt like we had some rushes that they would stop and give us a negative play, but we rushed the ball at times very effectively,” OSU coach Les Miles said. “I felt like they had really taken that opportunity away from us.”

Down 31-14 early in the fourth quarter, the Cowboys mounted a comeback.

Morency dove in for his second score on a fourth-and-goal from the 1 to get the Cowboys to within 10. Soon after, quarterback Josh Fields found Woods in the end zone on a 17-yard pass that cut the Rebels’ lead to 31-28 with 4:38 remaining.

Ole Miss was able to run out the clock thanks in large part to Turner, who totaled 42 yards on five attempts during the final drive. No run was bigger than his 25-yard carry on a third-and-four with 2:53 left after Oklahoma State had burned its final timeout.

“At that time we made the decision we were going to keep the clock running,” Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe said. “We decided to run the football with the draw.”

Three plays later, the game was over.

“Your heart just drops to your toenails, and you’re just like Ah!'” OSU offensive lineman Sam Mayes said. “So close, but you can’t win them all. I really feel that if we had got the ball back we would have won the football game, and that’s how I truly feel.”

Ole Miss was the first to score when Manning found Turner for a 16-yard touchdown pass midway through the first quarter.

The Cowboys responded on the next drive. After OSU picked up a first down on a fake field goal, Morency carried three times for 22 yards, ending with a 4-yard score to tie the game at 7.

Oklahoma State then capitalized on an Ole Miss turnover.

On a first down from his own 32, Manning floated a deep pass to Chris Collins that was intercepted by Cowboy safety Jon Holland to end the first quarter. With a short field ahead, OSU methodically drove 44 yards and scored on 3-yard TD run by Bell.

It was Ole Miss’ chance to answer back, and Manning found a wide-open Mike Espy streaking across the middle of the field. The 25-yard touchdown pass tied the game at 14 with 8:14 remaining in the first half.

The Cowboys faced a fourth-and-4 from the Ole Miss 39-yard line. Miles decided to go for it and Cooper, who was the Defensive Player of the Game, broke through the line nearly untouched to come up with a drive-ending sack.

“We felt like going into the wind we were a little too far away for the field goal,” Miles said. “The play was a relatively low-risk play with a decent reward, the opportunity to get a first down, and at worst an incompletion. We did not expect a sack.”

Feeling the momentum shift, the Rebels started at their own 39 their best field position of the first half.

Jonathan Nichols made it count with a 34-yard field goal to give Ole Miss a 17-14 halftime lead.

“We made some adjustments offensively because of some of the rotations they were doing,” Cutcliffe said. “From the secondary standpoint with their support system, we put a lot of it on Eli to do a lot of things at the line of scrimmage.”

The Rebels came out strong in the second half.

After the defense held Oklahoma State to a punt, Turner came alive to spark a scoring drive. He carried six times for 45 yards during the stretch, including a 2-yard touchdown run that gave the Rebels a 24-14 advantage.

The defense stopped the Cowboys again, but they punted the ball to the Rebels’ 3-yard line. But Manning led Ole Miss on a 13-play, 97-yard drive that ended with a Manning 1-yard sneak to increase the lead to 17, and Ole Miss held on to win.

“It was one of our goals we set for ourselves to get that 10th win,” Cooper said. “That’s a thing a lot of people don’t get to do. It was very important for the team.”