DALLAS — As the clock ticked down at a sold out Cotton Bowl, the Ole Miss side started serenading Texas Tech with chants of “over rated.”

Maybe Ole Miss was just a little underrated.

Ole Miss’ speed and athleticism proved to be too much for Texas Tech, as the Rebels cut up the Red Raiders, 47-34, to win the 73rd AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic on Friday afternoon.

Sophomore Dexter McCluster was named the Most Valuable Offensive Player after combining for 180 total yards and one touchdown. Marshay Green, who returned an interception back 65 yards for a third quarter touchdown, was the Defensive MVP.

Quarterback Jevan Snead completed 18 of 29 passes for 292 yards and three touchdowns, and the Rebels’ defense kept the high-flying Texas Tech offense in check for most of the second half. Tech scored 21 points in the first half, but managed only one score in the second until pushing across a garbage-time TD with 1:37 remaining.

No. 20 Ole Miss’ win over the eighth-ranked Red Raiders not only shocked most of the Tech fans in attendance, but a national audience as well, which predicted by a 91 percent tally that Tech would win the game in an ESPN poll.

“Ninety-one percent of the United States couldn’t think we’d win this game, but we did,” said Ole Miss senior wide receiver Michael Wallace, who had a key 41-yard touchdown catch that helped erase a 14-0 deficit and tie the game late in the first quarter. “We felt overshadowed all week. And there was some big talk, but we knew we could win the whole time.”

Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt, who turned around a program that won just 10 games in the last three years and no conference games last year, was beaming when he hoisted the Cotton Bowl trophy. The win marked Ole Miss’ second straight Cotton Bowl win, matching the 2003 victory behind Eli Manning over Oklahoma State.

“When I saw these guys the first time, I saw some good-looking athletes but maybe, saw themselves too much as individuals. Our coaching staff, however, connected with them. We developed that one heartbeat. We played for each other,” Nutt said.

McCluster echoed the team mantra.

“Every down, every play, one heartbeat. I just try and do everything for the team,” said McCluster, whose 4-yard TD run put Ole Miss up 47-28 with 4:34 left in the game. He ended with 97 yards on 14 carries and caught six passes for 83 yards.

The 81 combined points was the most in the 73-year history of the game. It also had the largest crowd for a Cotton Bowl at 88,175, more than half of it wearing Ole Miss colors and offering up “S-E-C! S-E-C!” chants as the clock ticked down.

Early in the third quarter, the Ole Miss defense started to turn up the heat. Marshay Green stepped in front of a Graham Harrell pass intended for All-America receiver Michael Crabtree and returned it for a 65-yard touchdown to put the Rebels up 31-21 with 12:12 left.

“I felt I needed to make up for the slip down in the first quarter. Once I caught it, they weren’t going to catch me,” Green said.

Green appeared to have a 63-yard touchdown on a punt return moments later, but it was reversed by replay. Green was ruled to have stepped out of bounds just inside the 10. Texas Tech then caught a break when three running plays went nowhere and Joshua Shene missed a 31-yard field goal on the ensuing drive.

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach gave the spark right back to Ole Miss when he shockingly went for it on a fourth-and-5 from the Tech 37. Harrell got three yards on a sneak, but was well short of the first down.

“That was a boneheaded decision. I wanted to try and draw them off, but my quarterback went with a play,” Leach said.

Ole Miss made Leach pay for the blunder with a quick three-play, 40-yard drive. All three plays were runs, including a 17-yarder for the touchdown by Brandon Bolden that put the Rebels up 38-21 with 6:55 left in the third quarter. Bolden led Ole Miss with 101 yards rushing.

Ole Miss pulled away from there behind its strong defense. The Rebels only had two sacks, but harassed Harrell all day, intercepted him twice, and took away his favorite target in Crabtree. The All-American was held to a career-low 30 yards on four catches, although one of them did go for a touchdown. The defense also made a huge play at the end of the first half. With nine seconds left, Tech went for it on fourth-and-5 from the Ole Miss 47. Unable to find a receiver, Harrell took off up the field and scrambled all the way inside the 5-yard line before he was tripped up by Kendrick Lewis as time expired.

“I knew this wasn’t going to be easy,” Leach said. “This was a funny game. There were over corrections on defense by both teams, maybe moreso for us. We both had simple game plans, they just executed better. They did a good job of responding. Play after play, they did the job. This was a team that beat Florida and lost to Alabama by just four.”

After Bolden’s score, Harrell was sacked in the end zone for a safety to make it 40-21, and the Rebels tacked on the clinching touchdown on the ensuing drive, on McCluster’s 4-yard run.

Harrell got Texas Tech back within two scores with a 17-yard TD pass to Eric Morris with 1:37 left, but the Rebels recovered the onsides kick and ran out the clock. The touchdown pass capped a stellar career for Harrell. He was 36-of-58 passing for a Cotton Bowl-record 364 yards and four TDs, and became both the NCAA career leader in touchdown passes (134) and the first player with multiple 5,000-yard seasons.

Two of those touchdowns came in the first half, as the Red Raiders jumped out to a 14-0 lead early. After opening with three straight incompletions, Harrell hit on his next three, including a 35-yard TD pass to Edward Britton. Ole Miss cornerback Jeremy McGee slipped down, allowing Britton to pop wide open for the score that made it 7-0 with 6:31 left in the first quarter.

Two plays later, Tech was back in the end zone, again with Ole Miss help. Snead, after hitting a 19-yard pass to Shay Hodge, tried again to go right but this time Tech defensive end Jake Ratliff batted the ball right into the hands of safety Darcel McBath, who took the gift 43 yards for the score and a 14-0 lead with 5:22 left in the first.

Ole Miss finally got going when Snead hit Markeith Summers on a 29-yard pass to the Tech 11. That set up an 8-yard TD strike to Gerald Harris to cut Tech’s lead in half with 1:49 left in the first. The Rebels then tied it when Wallace beat two Tech defenders to the ball following a 43-yard TD pass from Snead. The score completed a 10-play, 83-yard drive that saw Ole Miss convert three third downs on screens and draws.

The teams traded scores from there, but once the Rebels rallied to tie it McCluster said it felt like it was their day.

“When we tied it up at 14, I felt we would win the game,” McCluster said. “Everything has been great all week. We played as a team and went out there and played Ole Miss football. Coach Nutt turned this program around. The players bought in, stuck together and we played great.”

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Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com.