Ole Miss had a bit of a tough time on Saturday to knock off Southeast Louisiana, 40-29. The Rebels were outscored 12-7 in the third quarter as the margin became interesting for a while.

In his comments after the game, coach Matt Luke said this was an example that nothing in life is ever easy, and that the Lions would pose problems with their speed offensively. Four turnovers, though, were certainly a problem for Ole Miss.

“I’m happy we got the win,” Luke said, according to OM Spirit. “We need to try and continue to build on the vision of this program. And that’s what I told our guys. Every time that you put on that uniform, it’s got to mean something to you. When you walk on that field you have this vision of what you want to look like. That wasn’t what we wanted. We’ll get better. We’be got to go correct it after a win and go back to work tomorrow. Any win is a good win, we just want to try and get better from it.”

But the player who rescued the Rebels was star athlete Jerrion Ealy, who delivered a 94-yard kickoff return in the first quarter, and a 30-yard TD run in the second quarter. Ealy had 101 total offensive yards, and 273 all-purpose yards.

“I’m really proud of Jerrion,” Luke said. “The difference in the game was a big run and the kickoff return for a touchdown. There are some freshmen out there making mistakes, but there’s some freshmen out there making big plays too. This is an opportunity in a win to get better. I talked a lot about vision and when you look at the vision we want for our program this is not it, so we’re just working to get better and try to build that vision. We want to have a standard and live up to that standard every time we play. No matter who we play.”

The Rebels return to action against Cal this week in Oxford. Cal is 3-0 with wins over UC-Davis, Washington and North Texas.