Manning rallies Ole Miss past Vandy.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

OXFORD, Miss. _ Eli Manning was having the worst game of his Ole Miss career. The Rebels trailed lowly Vanderbilt by 17 points and had lost their last three games. Things looked bleak for the home team at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

"Sometimes, it just takes a little while to get going," Manning said.

When the sophomore Ole Miss quarterback got going, the Commodores were completely out of their league.

Manning threw four touchdown passes in the second half to carry the Rebels to a 38-27 victory over Vandy on Saturday before a Vaught-Hemingway crowd of 39,212. Ole Miss finished regular-season play with a 7-4 record, and a 4-4 mark in the Southeastern Conference, but it might not be enough to get the Rebels in a bowl game for the fifth consecutive season.

"We put ourselves in that position," Ole Miss tight end Mitch Skrmetta said. "We can't cry or moan about it. We'll take whatever we can get."

Vandy finishes its season 2-9 and 0-8 in the SEC and was making its final appearance under lame-duck coach Woody Widenhofer.

Ole Miss still hopes it has a shot at the Peach Bowl, but the logjam of SEC teams that are bowl eligible may leave the Rebels scrambling for at-large berths in either the Humanitarian Bowl in Boise, Idaho, or the Silicon Valley Bowl in San Jose, Calif. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, many bowl game representatives have said geographical proximity looms as a possible factor because of reduced airline travel.