Warde Manuel knew from the start that he would probably lose Turner Gill. It's one of the realities of being an athletic director at a lower Division I school. You hire good, ambitious people, and you expect them to aspire to much bigger things.

It's bittersweet, to be sure. But when a coach climbs the ladder to a BCS school, it's an affirmation of a school's athletic vision, a sign that the program has arrived. Like any good AD, Manuel was prepared for the eventuality.

Today, Manuel will introduce Jeff Quinn as the University at Buffalo's new head football coach. Quinn, the offensive coordinator and interim head coach at unbeaten and No. 3-ranked Cincinnati, is expected to sustain the momentum that Gill created during his four seasons as the Bulls' head coach.

This is a very good hire, a validation of UB's rise to respectability. It's hard to imagine UB making this sort of hire four years ago, when Gill left the personnel department of the Green Bay Packers to take over a foundering UB program.

UB football was a joke at the time. A coach in Quinn's position — hot coordinator for a national power — probably wouldn't have

taken a risk on the Bulls.

Today, UB is a destination. Manuel had a much deeper pool of candidates this time around. Ten days from now, Quinn will be on the sideline in the Sugar Bowl, leading Cincinnati against Florida, last year's national champ. Quinn will be standing in for his old pal, Brian Kelly, who left UC to become the new head man at Notre Dame.

The Sugar Bowl announcers will talk about Quinn's new head job. It will be free advertising for UB. It can't hurt to have potential recruits know that the man behind the Cincinnati offense, which averages 40 points a game, is heading off to coach Buffalo.

Gill put UB football on the map. Quinn, who spent 21 years as an offensive assistant under Kelly at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan and Cincinnati, needs to keep it there.

Manuel wasn't deterred by Quinn's lack of head coaching experience. He wanted a coordinator from a major school. Still, you never know with first-time head coaches. The jump from an assistant's job to the head chair, with all the attendance pressure and responsibilities, is the biggest one in sports.

Quinn was up for the Central Michigan job when Kelly left for Cincinnati a few years back, but was passed over. You wonder why it took him this long to get a head job. Of course, I asked the same questions about Joe Mihalich, who spent 17 years as an assistant at LaSalle before taking the head basketball job at Niagara. That one worked out fairly well.

A college head coach must wear many hats. Quinn will have to be an ambassador for the program, a marketer and a liaison to the alumni. Gill was exceptional at those things. Quinn will be learning on the job. He also has to be a recruiter for a school that can be a tough sell for top high school talent.

Quinn didn't call the plays at Cincinnati, though he designed the offense and did much of the game planning. Gill was new to calling the plays when he came to UB and experienced some growing pains in the process. If Quinn could get an offense to score 40 points in the Big East, he'll probably do OK in the MAC.

It's pretty clear that Manuel wanted another offensive guy in charge of his program. The college game is an offensive proposition these days. The rising teams tend to be the ones with the most inventive attacks. Let's face it, it's also a more entertaining product for the discerning Buffalo fan base.

No one expects Quinn to win 12 games a year. But Gill set a solid foundation for the program. UB football matters now. There's no reason for it to slide back because Gill moved on to Kansas.

Not long ago, winning football at UB was a hope; now it's an expectation. We'll see if Quinn lives up to it.