JACKSON (AP) — When Sylvester Croom was hired at Mississippi State five years ago, CNN carried the announcement that the Southeastern Conference finally had a black head football coach to the world.

Croom slipped out the door while no one was looking Saturday, resigning after an early morning meeting with athletic director Greg Byrne. The man who made history was history, another victim of a win-now-or-else mentality in the nation’s toughest conference.

“It’s sad, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Mississippi coach Houston Nutt said. “It’s the way of the world in college football right now.”

Croom resigned less than 24 hours after the Bulldogs suffered one of their most embarrassing losses in his five-year term. They lost to No. 25 Mississippi 45-0 and appeared inept in a game that was out of hand from the opening moments. Croom finished 21-38 at Mississippi State.

Croom was given some wiggle room early in his tenure because of debilitating NCAA sanctions. But after winning 2007 SEC coach of the year and the Liberty Bowl during an 8-5 breakthrough season, boosters and fans were not willing to sit through another losing season and discontent grew as the Bulldogs stumbled to a 4-8 finish.

The coach met with Byrne, who is in his first season as AD, to discuss the program’s future Saturday morning. Byrne was expected to ask Croom to make changes to his coaching staff, but Byrne would not give specific details about what was discussed. He said it was Croom’s decision to resign.

“We talked about a lot of different ideas and coach Croom was open to a lot of different ideas,” Byrne said in a conference call with reporters. “The final idea was where we landed.”

The arguments for and against Croom went back and forth all season as the Bulldogs struggled. But a 31-28 win over Arkansas helped the pro-Croom sentiment and a good fight against the No. 25 Rebels might have quieted some of the doubters. Croom even got a vote of confidence from incoming Mississippi State president Mark Keenum recently.

But even Croom seemed stunned after Friday’s loss, the worst defeat in the series since 1971. The game neatly encapsulated the offensive struggles that plagued Croom’s career. The Bulldogs allowed 11 sacks and got pushed back for minus-51 yards rushing.

“They came in here with the idea they were going to beat us bad, and they did from start to finish,” Croom said after the game. “I don’t know why what happened today occurred. I’m sorry to say that it’s an absolute mystery to me.”

Mississippi State is the fifth school in the SEC West to make a coaching change in the last five years with only Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville surviving that span, though even he is suffering fan discontent in a losing season.

And with Croom gone, there are now only three black coaches at the 119 major college football programs — Miami’s Randy Shannon, Buffalo’s Turner Gill and Houston’s Kevin Sumlin.

Ty Willingham at Washington and Kansas State’s Ron Prince have both already been fired. Three black head coaches is the lowest number since 1993 and down from a high of eight in 1997.

Croom, among the first black players to play for Bear Bryant at Alabama, was treated as a pioneer and even honored at a White House celebration of black history after becoming the SEC’s first African-American head football coach.

Croom worked as an assistant for Bryant and spent 17 seasons in the NFL as an assistant. He was a finalist for the Alabama job back in 2003, but lost out to Mike Shula.