The 2017 Buffalo Bulls football team represented the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

in the

2017 NCAA Division I FBS football season The 2017 NCAA Division I FBS football season was the highest level of college football competition in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in 2017. The regular season began on August 26, 2017, and end ...

. The Bulls were led by third-year head coach

Lance Leipold Lance Leipold ( ; born May 6, 1964) is an American college football coach who has been the head football coach at the University of Kansas since 2021. Leipold served as the head football coach at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater (UWW) fr ...

and played their home games at

University at Buffalo Stadium UB Stadium is a stadium in Amherst, New York on the campus of the University at Buffalo. It is primarily used for football, soccer, and track and field events, and is the home field of the Buffalo Bulls. It opened on September 4, 1993, with a ga ...

as members of the East Division of the

Mid-American Conference The Mid-American Conference (MAC) is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I collegiate athletic conference with a membership base in the Great Lakes region that stretches from Western New York to Illinois. Nine of the twel ...

. The Bulls finished the season 6–6, 4–4 in MAC play to finish in a tie for third place in the East Division. Despite being bowl-eligible, the Bulls did not receive an invitation to a bowl game.

Previous season

The Bulls finished the 2016 season 2–10, 1–7 in MAC play to finish in last place in the East Division.

Coaching staff

Source:

Season notes

Record setting game

On October 7, 2017, the Bulls and

Western Michigan West Michigan and Western Michigan are terms for an arbitrary region in the U.S. state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Most narrowly it refers to the Grand Rapids-Muskegon-Holland, Michigan, Holland area, and more broadly to most of the region a ...

to score 139 points in a game that took a record-tying seven overtimes to settle. Buffalo lost 71–68. The game marked the highest-scoring FBS game, breaking the previous record set in 2016.

Bowl snub

On November 24, 2017, Buffalo gained bowl eligibility for just the third time in school history. The Bulls had previously made appearances in the now-defunct

International Bowl The International Bowl was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) collegiate American football bowl game played in Toronto from 2007 through 2010. During its run, it was the only post-season bowl game played outside the United States ...

in 2008 and the Potato Bowl in 2013, then were denied bowl eligibility after a game the Bulls were likely to win was canceled due to a snowstorm and never rescheduled in 2014. The loss of one bowl game compared to the 2016 season and the distribution of wins and losses across the Bowl Subdivision meant that, unlike previous years, there were three fewer openings than there were teams to fill them, and the Bulls were one of the three teams snubbed by all of the bowls.

Schedule

Buffalo announced their 2017 football schedule on January 23, 2017. In out-of-conference play, the Bulls will meet former

head coach

P. J. Fleck Philip John Fleck Jr. (born November 29, 1980) is an American football coach and former wide receiver. He has served as the head coach for the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team since 2017. Born in Sugar Grove, Illinois, Fleck played colle ...

's Minnesota team, as well as the

Lane Kiffin Lane Monte Kiffin (born May 9, 1975) is an American football coach who is currently the head coach of the Ole Miss Rebels. Kiffin formerly was the offensive coordinator for the USC Trojans football team from 2005 to 2006, head coach of the Nati ...

-led FAU Owls. Source:2017 Buffalo Bulls football schedule
''FBSchedules.com''. Retrieved April 29, 2017.

Game summaries

at Minnesota

at Army

Colgate

Florida Atlantic

at Kent State

Western Michigan

Northern Illinois

at Miami (OH)

at Akron

Bowling Green

at Ball State

Ohio

References

Buffalo Buffalo Bulls football seasons

Buffalo Bulls football The Buffalo Bulls football program is the intercollegiate American football team for the University at Buffalo located in the U.S. state of New York. The team competes at the NCAA Division I level in the Football Bowl Subdivision and is a memb ...

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