Rochester, N.Y. – The Empire 8 will add Buffalo State as an affiliate member in football beginning with the 2012 season. The addition of the Bengals will give the Empire 8 nine members in football.

Buffalo State will join Empire 8 football-playing members Alfred, Hartwick, Ithaca, St. John Fisher and Utica and affiliate member Frostburg State, Salisbury and Springfield. Frostburg State and Salisbury will begin Empire 8 play in 2011. The Empire 8 will have six members for the 2010 season following the 2009 departure of Norwich (who went 4-26 in five seasons as a football affiliate member before leaving after the 2008 season); conferences that fall below the NCAA's minimum of seven schools are allowed a two-year "grace period" to maintain their eligibility by adding members, which will keep the Empire 8's automatic bid intact.
Ithaca has represented the Empire 8 four times in the seven years since the conference began sponsoring football. The Bombers finished atop the league standings in 2003, 2005 and 2008 and earned an at-large bid to the NCAA playoffs in 2007.

The Empire 8 has sent seven teams to the NCAA playoffs in the last four years; in 2007 the league became the first conference to receive two at-large bids in the same season.

The Bombers own a 14-7 series lead over Buffalo State, winning the seven most recent meetings. The two teams met every year from 1988 to 2006 as well as twice in the NCAA playoffs. Jerry Boyes, who returned to the head coaching position at Buffalo State last year, was an all-American quarterback at Ithaca. A 1976 graduate, he is a member of the school's Hall of Fame.