The heat was on. It went beyond the 90-degree-plus temperatures for the previous two afternoon practices. It went beyond the back-to-back shutout losses to start the season followed by the stinging home defeat to vagabond Tulane, a guest weary from playing 13 consecutive road games because of Hurricane Katrina.

It went beyond the opening five touchdown drives by ninth-ranked LSU last weekend. It went beyond the surprise Wednesday when a reporter asked Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom about rearranging the 2007 schedule so his Bulldogs could open next year on television against LSU. "What? Where did that come from?" the coach wondered. The response: Your athletic director, Larry Templeton.

The warmth under that coaching seat and around the program went beyond the thread Wednesday on the usually mild FireSylvesterCroom.com asking Bulldogs fans to boycott the game tomorrow against fourth-ranked West Virginia in Starkville, Miss. Stay away from Scott Field this Saturday.

Rather, the heat -- from injuries, from a vexing schedule (half of its first six games against Top 10 teams), from a lingering NCAA probation -- has reached this boiling point: Croom this week proposed the notion of bringing in a psychologist for team therapy.

"At this point," he told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., "I'm willing to try anything."

History wasn't supposed to play out this way.

The first African-American coach in SEC football wasn't meant to earn the constant adjective embattled so soon, barely halfway into his third season.

A four-year probation from violations pegged to the staff of predecessor and long-ago Pitt coach Jackie Sherrill, a spate of injuries and poor play have shaken the confidence of the Bulldogs (1-4), who are 7-20 under Croom, and unsettled the celebrated story of his hiring Dec. 1, 2003. It was a story about one of Alabama's first black starters rising to head coach not just in the SEC, but in the same state where James Meredith integrated Ole Miss and 60 miles north of infamous Philadelphia, Miss. Instead, it has taken a negative turn, with the Mountaineers (4-0) a prohibitive favorite tomorrow to put Mississippi State further down a potential path to Croom's third consecutive 3-8 season and the program's sixth consecutive losing year.

"I know when he went there he was kind of disappointed that he didn't have the type of athletes he was used to coaching," explained a close friend and former Alabama teammate, Steelers defensive line coach John Mitchell. "Right now, if they give him time to recruit and get the type of guys he feels he can win with, I think he'll turn the program around. Mississippi State has been kind of like a dormant place for a long time in the SEC. They lose a lot of games."

When they talk by telephone on occasion, Mitchell added: "I tell him to hang in there. He didn't come from a losing program. Coaching in professional football, coming from San Diego where they went to a Super Bowl, it's a tough situation for him. But I think he's handling it very well."

Croom, with 11 years as an Alabama aide followed by 17 years at NFL stops that included San Diego and Green Bay, came to Starkville with a mandate to make Mississippi State more disciplined.

Results almost always are judged by on-field performance. And Croom's first two Bulldogs bunches went 3-8. This one stumbled to an ESPN-televised, 15-0 loss against South Carolina and to a 34-0 rout by then-fourth-ranked Auburn. The next week, Tulane beat the hosts, 32-29, and Croom held open his locker room doors so his players could hear the Green Wave exalt.

"I could care less what anybody thinks about what we're doing," he snapped at media after the Auburn loss. "I don't want to hear about play-calling. I don't want to hear anybody talk about firing any assistant coaches, because I'm never going to fire a football coach. If it came to that, then I'm going to fire me."

Now comes West Virginia.

"I think the program definitely improved," Croom said over the telephone, assessing the three-year picture. "I know the win-loss record isn't anywhere near where I'd like it to be. We just get back to 85 scholarships next year [from the probation].

"We had a lot of transition in the program the first two years, which I anticipated. We've changed a great deal. And we're playing a lot of young players. When you play young players, mistakes occur. That's part of the process. It isn't fun. But it's part of the process."