STARKVILLE – Mississippi State football season ticket packages are going fast, but the question is, how fast?

As of Tuesday, about 33,500 season tickets had been sold, according to Scott Stricklin, who leads MSU’s Bulldog Club and fundraising efforts. The school record for season ticket sales is around 38,000.

MSU is ahead of last year’s pace, but that’s in part due to the fact that the tickets went on sale about two months earlier than normal this year. The school capitalized on coach Dan Mullen’s hire and started accepting purchase requests in January.

Stricklin said State is about 2,500 tickets away from last year’s total.

“There’s nothing to compare it to, but by all accounts, it seems like demand is greater this year,” he said.

And MSU won’t begin its marketing campaign until July.

The season attendance record at Davis Wade Stadium (capacity: 55,082) is 306,545, set in 2004 when MSU played seven home games. There will be seven home games this year, too, so could the rush on tickets portend a new attendance record?

“I think just by virtue of who we’re playing and the demand we’ve had so far,” Stricklin said, “I think if you’re ever going to do it, this would be the year to set it.”