Buffalo, No One Tries To Out-New York Syracuse. No One...

Say what you will about the whole New York's College Team campaign, but DOC Gross was clearly on to something judging by the way every other school in and around the state of New York has reacted since. Rutgers fans became Mini-Nate Silvers, crunching demographic numbers at will. UConn got all uppity about their claims to NYC. St. John's announced "We Are New York's Team" despite all the evidence to the contrary.

And now there's Buffalo. SUNY Buffalo. The Buffalo Bulls. Or, whatever the hell they're called. They've been in the midst of a rebranding for a while now to become more "New Yorky." It started with a new basketball court featuring New York instead of Buffalo and today's release of their new football uniforms certainly does the job:

Via UB Bull Run, the university basically wants to be the public NY school to Syracuse's private one:

The department also published a new strategic plan this week emphasizing their desire to sell UB as the premier public institution in the state of New York.

I liken this strategy to Asylum Entertainment. You might know them as the company that just made Sharknado, but their claim to fame is making knock-off blockbusters and releasing them on DVD the same time as the "real" movie's actual release. The theory being that you'll walk past the shelf, see "Transmorphers," and be tricked into buying it thinking you're getting "Transformers." (And to be fair, if you're plunking down money for a Transformers movie, you get what you deserve).

I suppose the hope is that a recruit walking past SUNY-Buffalo will see all this "New York" stuff, think they're committing to Syracuse and then sign on the dotted line before realizing what's happened. Guess that works...