Let’s imagine ourselves in an alternate reality. Just indulge me for a moment, please.

Let’s say Sylvester Croom did not, um, “resign” as Mississippi State’s football coach in November.

Let’s say he and his West Coast “offense” were back for a sixth season, with the 4-8 debacle of 2008 still looming in his, and everyone else’s, rearview mirror.

If Croom were still coach, do you really think football season ticket sales would be about 33,500 as of Tuesday? That’s less than 5,000 shy of a school record, and MSU hasn’t even made its big marketing push yet (look for that in July).

Do you think there would be any buzz at all surrounding the football program, other than the continuation of the angry buzz that surrounded it after that 45-0 trouncing at Ole Miss?

Would Daniel Monaghan have bought season tickets for the first time ever if Croom hadn’t left and been replaced by Dan Mullen, who’s proved to be a master salesman?

“The coaching change had nearly everything to do with it,” said the 59-year-old Monaghan, an operations manager at a Tupelo manufacturing company.

Other fans echoed that sentiment.

Lee Lemons, a 42-year-old from Saltillo who works at a home improvement store, last bought season tickets during the Jackie Sherrill era. Lemons became disenchanted with the athletic administration.

“Now with (athletics director) Greg Byrne and his new hires, I feel the whole department is looking again to the future,” Lemons said.

It’s a future that’s caused exhilaration among MSU fans, like 49-year-old electronics technician Don Gray of Starkville. His family’s had season tickets since 1969.

The spirit of ’99

“I can’t remember being this excited since the 1999 season,” he said, referring to the year after MSU’s SEC Western Division championship run.

One astounding aspect of this rush on tickets is that it’s occurring during a recession in one of the nation’s poorest states. Edwin Brown, a 28-year-old real estate investor who lives in Jackson, has had season tickets in his family for years.

But this year, two tickets were up for grabs. Good ones. Chairback seats.

Brown bought them.

“We're in the real estate business and things are pretty tight financially around the house, so if Croom had still been coach we would have just let the tickets go back,” he said. “I've been to hear Dan Mullen speak and really followed his actions since he came on board, and I am so excited about the future of this program that we found a way to make it work financially and keep the tickets, because there are going to be a lot of good years of Mississippi State football to come.”

I’m not here to bash Croom, by the way. I’m merely pointing out what a difference one man, in this case Mullen, can make among a fan base. As one astute reader pointed out, if he doesn’t win, the excitement will wane again.

Monaghan, who lives in Amory, has been an MSU fan for more than 40 years, so he remembers well the 1974 Sun Bowl and Sherrill’s heyday during the 1990s.

“So, even as excited as we are,” Monaghan said, “I just urge a little caution until the result on the field matches the expectations.”

Brad Locke (brad.locke@djournal.com) covers Mississippi State for the Daily Journal and blogs daily at NEMS360.com.