"You bought into that belief and that philosophy," Mullen said, closing his question-and-answer session less than 48 hours before MSU’s season opener against Memphis. "And you didn’t have to buy in. There’s a lot of different ways you can be successful but we felt we had a plan that worked and we asked you all to buy in, and you all bought in 100 percent. You had no idea if you bought in if we would go to the Gator Bowl or not. You could have bought in and we could have been 5-7 last year. But you did it and you all bought in. You believed in what we were doing and now we’re reaping the rewards for that."