HATTIESBURG (AP) — Nick Mullens threw four touchdown passes to spark Southern Mississippi to a 34-13 win over Texas-El Paso Saturday afternoon.

“I thought our team did what they needed to do to win,” said Southern Miss coach Todd Monken in his postgame press conference. “We haven’t played perfect yet, which is a good sign. You win by three touchdowns but you are still not perfect.”

Southern Miss (6-3, 4-1) played in all-black uniforms while UTEP (3-5, 1-3) got permission from Conference-USA to wear all-orange for the Halloween game and the weather turned scary with a lightning storm that caused the stadium to be cleared at the start of the fourth quarter in a weather delay.

Monken said as the home team, the Golden Eagles had all the momentum going into the rain delay.

“We are at home with all of our strength coaches, we have all of the equiptment that we need to keep ourselves loose. We are the home team and we should have the advantage of being the home team.”

Mullens sandwiched an 11-yard pass to Michael Thomas and a 9-yard strike to Jalen Richard around a Jay Mattox 38-yard field goal that put the Golden Eagles up 13-3 at intermission.

Mullens found DJ Thompson with two second-half touchdown passes and finished with 277 passing yards on 23 of 33 throwing. He has had 11 straight games with a touchdown pass, with 2,890 yards for the season.

Thompson ended the game with 10 catches for 112 yards and two touchdowns.

Southern Miss finished with 246 yards rushing, led by Richard’s 127 yards on 20 carries.

The Golden Eagles held the Miners to 298 yards of offense and made itself eligible for postseason bowl games for the first time since 2011 in which the Eagles beat Nevada 24-17 in the Hawaii Bowl.

Monken said he’s appreciative of how far his team has come this season, but they’re not where they want to be yet.

“We’ve reached our first goal, which is to get bowl eligible. Our guys have earned nine straight weeks of playing with five weeks of two-a-days, so haven’t had a break,” Monken said. “We control our own destiny in the west and we control our destiny in winning the conference.”

Southern Miss wide receiver D.J. Thompson said the team is capable of being more than just bowl eligible.

“I want nine wins,” Thompson said. “We are marking things off of the list one by one. I’m glad for all of that but I really want a championship.