By Adam Zuvanich | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

The Mississippi football program was stuck in a rut when it hired Houston Nutt.

The Rebels didn’t win more than four games in a season from 2004-07 – going 14-32 overall during that span – and last season they were winless in the Southeastern Conference. But since Nutt was hired away from division-rival Arkansas last November, the Rebels have enjoyed a revival.

Ole Miss (8-4) won its last five regular-season games to finish second behind Alabama in the SEC Western Division, and it won road games against each of the last two national champions in Florida and LSU. The Rebels earned the program’s first national ranking in five years along the way, and now they’re headed to a bowl game for the first time since the 2003 season.

Mississippi head coach Houston Nutt, standing left, guided the Rebels to victories in their last five games to help Mississippi finish second in the Southeastern Conference Western Division. Ole Miss will be playing in a bowl game for the first time since 2003.

“The first day he got here, he came into the room and said he was going to be a players’ coach, he was going to get this team to a bowl game and he was going to turn the program around,” said junior Dexter McCluster, one of the team’s leading offensive players. “He’s done everything.”

The 51-year-old Nutt, who was named SEC coach of the year for the second time in three seasons, laid the foundation for 2008 by convincing two of the Rebels’ most talented players to stay in Oxford, Miss. Left tackle Michael Oher and defensive tackle Peria Jerry considered entering the NFL draft following their junior seasons last year, but they decided to return and play for a new coaching staff.

Both players are glad they did, and not just because they’ll conclude their collegiate careers with a Cotton Bowl matchup against No. 7 Texas Tech (11-1). Oher and Jerry were first-team All-Americans this season, and both are projected as first-round draft picks.

“He knows how to win, and he just put all the players in the right positions,” Oher said of Nutt. “We’ve got a lot of talent on the team, and with the right coaching staff, we finally learned how to win.”

Nutt handed the keys to his offense to Jevan Snead, a sophomore transfer from Texas who passed for 2,470 yards and 23 touchdowns during the regular season, and installing the “Wild Rebel” formation also jump-started the offense. McCluster, who acts as the quarterback in the spread set, has 558 yards rushing, 542 yards receiving and six total touchdowns.

“I feel like he came in and brought a lot of excitement, here and around town,” Snead said. “He’s very energetic and passionate about the game, and I feel like that’s one of the great things he brings to our team.”

The Rebels’ defense also has shined under Nutt – they rank among the top six in the nation in sacks, tackles for loss and run defense – and they posted shutouts in two of the last three games.

The team as a whole has gained more and more confidence throughout the season. Ole Miss sputtered to a 3-4 start, but beginning with an Oct. 25 win at Arkansas – where Nutt spent the previous 10 years – it won its last five games by a combined score of 175-41.

The Rebels’ four losses this season were by a combined 19 points, and Nutt orchestrated the program’s best turnaround since legendary coach John Vaught’s debut season in 1947.

“We gained some confidence at Florida and got on a roll,” Nutt said of the Rebels’ 31-30 victory on Sept. 27, “and then we went on the road to play Arkansas and found a way to win another close game. From October 25th on, we’ve found ways to win games instead of finding ways to lose.”

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