What It Could Have Been

[BrooklynBull]

An article about the revival of UB football in 1977 and the what if they came back as Division I team.

https://buffalonews.com/2020/04/07/ub-buffalo-football-division-iii-division-i-bill-dando-charlie-donnor-marty-barrett-karl-fischer-bob-deming/

 

[RecoveringHillbilly]

Good insight from the former student athletes. But unfortunately choosing D3 left too few engaged alumni.

The article seems to point to 1-A football, but 1-AA would have been more likely for us, having been established in 1978. We could have joined the Yankee Conference with UConn, UMass, Maine, BU, UNH, URI. After that we could have joined the MAC when Akron came on board in '92, better prepared for FBS. Or who knows, a full move up of programs to D-1 in the 80's and football success and a Big East invite in 1991..one can dream.

[BrooklynBull]

1 hour ago, RecoveringHillbilly said:

Good insight from the former student athletes. But unfortunately choosing D3 left too few engaged alumni.

The article seems to point to 1-A football, but 1-AA would have been more likely for us, having been established in 1978. We could have joined the Yankee Conference with UConn, UMass, Maine, BU, UNH, URI. After that we could have joined the MAC when Akron came on board in '92, better prepared for FBS. Or who knows, a full move up of programs to D-1 in the 80's and football success and a Big East invite in 1991..one can dream.

What left too few alumni engaged was dropping football after the 1970 season.

The budget for the entire season for at least the first three years was $25,000.00 (slightly over $105,000.00 today).

The revival of football was announced in March 1977.  The NCAA did not split football into I-A and I-AA until January 1978, so I-AA was not even an option for UB when football was revived.  Even if it was you could not run a I-AA program on $25,000.00.

[RecoveringHillbilly]

And the point of these BN articles is "What if?". The reality was, we certainly were not well equipped, as you well know better than most having been there at that period.

My point was choosing D3 over a higher level left fewer engaged than an alternative choice, though it is true some football was better than no football. There are examples of programs playing a year of only practices before playing, so that was my thought on how 1AA by '78 could work. And if they aligned with Yankee schools it may have brought a lot more interest. In much the way announcing The Run to D-1 and the season ticket push to satisfy MAC football requirements in the 90s, brought out fresh support.

[BrooklynBull]

12 hours ago, RecoveringHillbilly said:

And the point of these BN articles is "What if?". The reality was, we certainly were not well equipped, as you well know better than most having been there at that period.

My point was choosing D3 over a higher level left fewer engaged than an alternative choice, though it is true some football was better than no football. There are examples of programs playing a year of only practices before playing, so that was my thought on how 1AA by '78 could work. And if they aligned with Yankee schools it may have brought a lot more interest. In much the way announcing The Run to D-1 and the season ticket push to satisfy MAC football requirements in the 90s, brought out fresh support.

The point, they need to fill space and have their sports writers do something.

The idea of a year of practice and then starting tom play is rare now and non-existent in the 1970s.  As I said above when the revival of football was announced I-AA did NOT exist.  It was created between the first and second seasons of the revived program.  Also to have played I-AA you would have need scholarships and that were not permissible at that time in the SUNY System.  Even without scholarships you could not run a I-AA program on $25,000.00