No. 20 Mississippi hangs on, dodges bullet to stay unbeaten in SEC.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

Byline: Jim Mashek

OXFORD, Miss. _ Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning passed for 391 yards and three touchdowns, and yet . . . it almost wasn't enough.

The Rebels' Tremaine Turner punched out 117 yards rushing, just two days after another Ole Miss tailback had been suspended ... and it almost wasn't enough.

No. 20 Ole Miss exploded for 40 points or more for the fifth time this season . . . and it almost wasn't enough.

South Carolina's furious comeback left the Rebels a little on the defensive, but the fact remains that Ole Miss is the only team unbeaten in Southeastern Conference play. The No. 20 Rebels survived a fourth-quarter meltdown to outlast the Gamecocks, 43-40, before 56,878 Saturday afternoon at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.

"We certainly helped them too much," Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe said. "The penalties (nine for 86 yards) bother me. I'm anxious to study this tape and see what we can improve, from that standpoint, and we are going to improve. We have a big challenge in front of us (a road trip to Auburn) ... It's going to get tougher each week."

Ole Miss (7-2, 5-0 in the SEC) built a 29-point lead with 3:28 left in the third quarter, but the Gamecocks (5-4, 2-4) kept coming back. A sensational 20-yard touchdown catch by South Carolina's Noah Whiteside left the Gamecocks down by three points with 1:40 to play. A communication mix-up on the USC sideline, however, helped the Rebels make the play on a subsequent pooch kick before they ran out the clock with a single first down on the ground.