UB final ranking: #110

10 down, 109 to go, is my optimistic, forward-thinking spin on Mike Huguenin's final ranking of the 120 FBS teams. Scout.com ranked Buffalo #116 preseason, so you could also argue we climbed 6 spots, and have 109 to go.

In the MAC, we finished ahead of only two teams: Akron, (dead last) and CMU (111).

NIU was highest ranked in the conference at 37th, followed by Toledo at 42nd. Ohio and Temple (50) and (55) lead the MAC East. WMU, (77) Ball St, (87) EMU, (93) Miami, (94) Kent, (95) and Bowling Green (98) were all able to finish in the top 100.

The conference breakdown shows the MAC is right in the middle of the mid-major conferences, but with 3 top 50 teams, the MAC distinguished itself. The 3 top 50 teams is 2nd most of mid-major programs and equals the number of top 50 teams in the Big East:

Average Rank by conference (top 50 teams):

Big 12: 35 (8)
SEC: 39 (8)
B1G: 45 (8)
PAC 12: 47 (6)
ACC: 52 (6)
Big East: 53 (3)
MTN: 70 (2)
CUSA: 74 (4)
MAC: 82 (3)
WAC: 87 (0)
Sun Belt: 92 (0)

Of course what does this mean for the future, well nothing because of the addition of new teams to FBS and conference re-alignment. But if we factored all the changes in, the MAC no longer has any chance to compete with the Big East, but we'd arguably be the best Mid-Major Conference:

Big 12: 32 (8) Big 12 loses and adds two top 50 teams
SEC: 38 (10) SEC adds 2 top 50 teams
B1G: 45 (8) no changes
PAC 12: 47 (6) no changes
Big East: 49 (5) No longer east, but much better gaining 3 top 50 teams while only losing 1.
ACC: 54 (6) ACC picks up top 50 basketball schools, but not in football
CUSA: 83 (2) Loses 2 top 50 teams
MAC: 85 (3) addition of UMass hurts average rank, but helps conference recruiting map
USA/MTN 87 (2) C-USA/MTN merger, drags down the C-USA...
MTN: 92 (0) MTN is gutted
Sun Belt: 95 (0) Adds a true rival for Troy
WAC: 98 (0) More gutted than the MTN, added 2 new teams from Texas