An Open Letter to Dan Mullen

Dear Dan,
I’m writing this letter to you for one reason and one reason alone – because you’re not currently within reach for me to give you the manliest hug you’ve ever received.
No seriously. I want to walk right up to you and squeeze any of the remaining Yankee right out of you. I want to pinch your cheek and tell you just how big you’ve gotten, just like all 27 great aunts I never really knew used to do me at my cycle of family reunions.

Let me recap this here, just in case you’re caught up in the moment like most of us currently are. You took over a football program that had gone 29-65 over the eight years before you arrived. In that span, there was but one, yes ONE, bowl appearance. There were losses to Maine, Tulane, UAB, Troy and Louisiana Tech. Quite frankly, to call what we were a “dumpster fire” would have been the equivalent of deeming Hurricane Katrina a passing summer shower. I was proud to be a Mississippi State Bulldog. I couldn’t have been more embarrassed of the product I was supporting.
Then came a fateful day in December of 2008 when off the plane at Bryan Airport stepped this former Gator offensive guru to save us from eternal futility. Despite another losing record in 2009, something felt different about you. There was a swagger, a confidence. Some called it arrogance. What no one could deny, however, was that times, they were a-changing in Starkville.
After closing out that initial season with your first of three straight Egg Bowl victories (four out of five now, but who’s counting?), you grabbed the microphone and cut a promo that Ric Flair would have been jealous of, proclaiming us as a program on the rise. I would say that even you couldn’t have had the foresight to see just how far up that ladder we could go. But for some reason, I think you did.
See, every year we began to hear a familiar theme. “This team’s goal is to compete for championships,” you’d say. “Our goal is to get to Atlanta,” we heard. Many, maybe even several wearing maroon and white, rolled their eyes. I mean, back to a few bowl games? Sure. But national relevance? Competing for an SEC title? How ‘bout let’s just not lose to schools we never heard of before and give ‘Bama and LSU a scare every now and then. That’s good enough right? Not for you. You never settled. Along the way, you changed our attitudes, too.
Three weeks ago, we were staring down the barrel of another trip to Baton Rouge. Check my Twitter timeline. I knew we were going to win. Against a school we hadn’t beaten in 15 years, in a place we hadn’t won since 1991, I literally had no doubt. Funny thing was, I wasn’t alone. What had once been a fan base mocked for its slogan of “We Believe” had become a group of supporters that could simply proclaim “We Will”. Sure enough, in the heart of Death Valley, the dead rose back to life and proclaimed to a nationwide audience that the Bulldogs’ bark was nowhere near as scary as their bite.
Some wanted to proclaim that win a fluke. You then simply presented those doubters Exhibit B, a Saturday morning thrashing of 6th-ranked Texas A&M. The common theme amongst our fan base during and after that mauling seemed to be “I can’t believe this is happening.” I can’t help but think that on the sidelines, under an Adidas MSU visor and C-Spire headset was a certain head coach thinking two simple words.
“Told ya”.
That brings us to the present. In five days, we play the biggest game in our school’s history. It’s No. 2 Auburn versus No. 3 Mississippi State. It’s the CBS Game of the Week. ESPN College Gameday is in town. Before the madness begins, I plan to make a quick trip to the Junction at some point early this week. I’m just going to stand there a minute and reminisce. I’m going to look up and remember a smaller Davis Wade Stadium with no video boards that are the size of half the Magnolia State themselves. I’m going to think of metal end zone bleachers, or maybe no end zone bleachers. I’m going to picture no East Side upper deck. I’m going to simply travel back through the years. Through the struggles, the Maines, and the expansions.
Finally, I’m going to sit back, raise an ice cold Diet Mountain Dew in the air and offer a toast. A toast to Mississippi State University. A toast to this football program. A toast to every fan that has been right there with me, agonizing and longing for what we have now. And a toast to you, Dan Mullen.
Because you see, when we all gather, cowbells clanging, at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, we’re not coming “believing”. We’re coming with all the confidence in the world that we’re putting our feet up Gus Malzahn and company’s backsides and potentially walking away as the No. 1 team in all the land come Sunday.
We have that attitude because you let us. This team, this fan base, has finally after nearly six years become you. That’s why The School Up North loathes us. That’s why the national media and the college football world is paying attention to us. And above all else, that’s why we all know we can take down the Auburn Tigers and continue to shock the college football universe.
Funny thing is, you knew it all along.
Hail State sir,
Joel T. Coleman