(09-14-2021 10:09 AM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  

(09-13-2021 10:02 PM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Rice and Buffalo are also AAU schools. Buffalo is pretty far away and rather small niche. It's Rice and UAB that are in footprint and bring rankings.

Buffalo is a flagship university with close to 30,000 students, first among equals among New York's four main SUNY campuses. (The other three are Albany, Stony Brook, and Binghamton.)

Buffalo may be too far outside the American's new footprint to be worth consideration, but is it neither small nor niche.

Yea I thought the same thing. Of all the reasons not to pick UB the top three, at this point

1 - Location
2 - Location
3 - Current Stadium

If the AAC wants to pick "footprint" schools then Buffalo makes little sense. Given the Bulls can and have used the Bills Stadium (and the Bills are angling for a new one which likely lands Downtown) then they check all the boxes

* Budget is already in AAC range (45 million last year)
* Academics would be near the top of the AAC
* Athletics has had good success for 5 years
* Market is right around #50 in the nation
* State Flagship^


^ - NY has no official flagship but UB has the largest enrollment, highest endowment, most history, highest Athletics, and is AAU/R1 university ranked in the top 50 public colleges nationally