I'm sorry but UB was in the MAC Championship game in men's basketball this past year. They are obviously committed to fielding the best possible athletic programs possible. Plus, they have one of the largest student body's in the MAC. All positives in their favor. They have just had NO luck making the transition from 1-AA to 1-A in football. To tell you the truth, they weren't the best 1-AA program to begin with, so it was obvious they were going to struggle for sometime. I guess I just don't like the idea of the MAC becoming one of those conferences that feel they have no room for a Buffalo or Temple. The MAC is better than that, they at least show some integrity by sticking with their member institutions and not dropping schools at their convenience just because their football program (a very small part of what makes a great university) aren't the best in the nation.sbrown wrote:I agree with getting rid of the of the schools like Buffalo that are not commited to successful athletic programs.
New conference USA
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UK Peregrine
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Schadenfreude
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Buffalo is not just one of the biggest schools in the MAC, it may be the closest thing the MAC has to a Big Ten school in academic terms.
If Buffalo isn't the absolute flagship of the State University of New York system -- and many will tell you it is -- then it is right there in the mix.
The SUNY system has four university centers: Buffalo, Binghamton, Albany and Stony Brook. These are New York's rough* equivalent to California's UC system (Cal, UCLA, Irving, etc.) Buffalo has a law school, a med school, etc. And U.S. News and World Report consistently gives UB strong marks, roughly what Ohio U. gets.
I like having a school like that in our conference. They are situated in a big market that will respond if they ever turn the ship around in football. And, as UK Peregrine mentions, they were a bucket or two away from winning the MAC tournament last March. So they can't be accused of not trying.
The troubling thing about Buffalo football is that they are not situated in fertile recruiting territory. Upstate New York does not produce a ton of talent. But if Buffalo can solve that problem, they can really build something there. There isn't a lot of competition in upstate New York, and it isn't hard to see them building a genuinely competitive rivalry with Syracuse if they can get over the hump. Syracuse isn't all that to begin with, and the Big East is sinking fast.
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* Roughly, in part, because New York has a seperate CUNY system for New York City. There also are a bunch of State University Colleges around -- Geneseo, Brockport, Oswego, to name three. One could compare these to California's Cal State system (Fresno, San Diego, San Jose, Long Beach), but the New York campuses aren't nearly as big.
If Buffalo isn't the absolute flagship of the State University of New York system -- and many will tell you it is -- then it is right there in the mix.
The SUNY system has four university centers: Buffalo, Binghamton, Albany and Stony Brook. These are New York's rough* equivalent to California's UC system (Cal, UCLA, Irving, etc.) Buffalo has a law school, a med school, etc. And U.S. News and World Report consistently gives UB strong marks, roughly what Ohio U. gets.
I like having a school like that in our conference. They are situated in a big market that will respond if they ever turn the ship around in football. And, as UK Peregrine mentions, they were a bucket or two away from winning the MAC tournament last March. So they can't be accused of not trying.
The troubling thing about Buffalo football is that they are not situated in fertile recruiting territory. Upstate New York does not produce a ton of talent. But if Buffalo can solve that problem, they can really build something there. There isn't a lot of competition in upstate New York, and it isn't hard to see them building a genuinely competitive rivalry with Syracuse if they can get over the hump. Syracuse isn't all that to begin with, and the Big East is sinking fast.
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* Roughly, in part, because New York has a seperate CUNY system for New York City. There also are a bunch of State University Colleges around -- Geneseo, Brockport, Oswego, to name three. One could compare these to California's Cal State system (Fresno, San Diego, San Jose, Long Beach), but the New York campuses aren't nearly as big.
