After transferring away for a semester, Shaun Dolac is back where he belongs in Buffalo

Shaun Dolac was a long way from home.

The West Seneca, New York, native sat in the Utah State football locker room earlier this year and wondered if he’d made the right decision to leave his hometown team, Buffalo, and transfer out west. A religious man, Dolac said a prayer, seeking clarity on what he should do next. And ultimately, even though things had gone well during his spring with the Aggies — he’d earned a starting role at linebacker —  Dolac knew in his heart he belonged back in western New York.

“It clicked in my mind like, maybe this isn’t the place for me,” Dolac said at the MAC football kickoff on July 19. “I think something just kind of pulled my heart, my heart said go home or go back to Buffalo. And then, you know, the mind was obviously — you gotta weigh the options, right? Your mind’s gonna tell you one thing, your heart’s — but you always gotta, I feel, go with your heart and go with your gut. And that’s kind of what I did, and that’s what it was. The heart was at Buffalo.”

Dolac’s story, one of transferring to a new school only to return to the institution he left is a rare but not unheard of trend during the new transfer portal era of college athletics. Others have pulled off similar maneuvers, like tight end Austin Stogner starting his career at Oklahoma, playing two years at South Carolina, then returning to the Sooners. 

But Dolac and others — like Michigan’s Amorion Walker — have returned to their previous school after just a semester with a new program.

“Sean’s a very thoughtful guy,” Buffalo head coach Pete Lembo said. “He’s a very caring guy and he loves Buffalo. That’s very clear. And so sometimes — sometimes you might think the grass is greener somewhere else and then you actually get there and you realize what you miss.” 

Dolac had a few reasons he wanted to transfer away from the Bulls after the 2023 season. He’d suffered a season-ending injury in 2023 and, after playing football all his life in the same place, he was curious to see what else was out there for him. With a year of eligibility left, he figured it was as good a time as ever to take a leap.

And while he doesn’t have a bad word to say about Utah State or his time there now, Dolac started to feel this nagging desire to go home. 

Stepping away from the place he’d spent most of his life and playing career helped Dolac see with crystal clarity how much it means to him to not only represent his hometown and region, but to be a point of inspiration for the young football players, much like he once was.

“And being from Buffalo, obviously it’s a little more inspirational towards them because I’m a kid from a small town in Buffalo,” Dolac said. “And you know, I want to make sure that they know that even if they’re from a small town or if they’re underrated, under recruited, they’re an underdog, that they can make it out of Buffalo. They can make it from the University of Buffalo.”

But a return was no guarantee, even for one of the most productive tacklers in the country when healthy. After Dolac left, Buffalo had to hire a new head coach, bringing in Lembo, further complicating things. 

When Dolac popped up in the portal at the end of spring, Lembo was open to bringing him back but needed to do his due diligence. Along with making sure the return of Dolac, a presumed starter in the middle of the defense, wouldn’t be disruptive to the roster and plans, Lembo also wanted to make sure it was the right cultural move. It was only natural to wonder how it might be received to bring him back after he had transferred out.

But after speaking with the people who had spent years with Dolac prior, Lembo had no doubts about bringing back the linebacker.

“he’s also smart enough to know that, um, he had to number one, build some new relationships with the new coaching staff and number two, earn back some trust because even though he’s so highly thought of, he did leave right and it’s highly unusual. 

Dolac, for his part, was hopeful that he’d be welcomed back to the Buffalo program alongside his former teammates. But he, too, understood it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that he could return.

“Getting that phone call from Coach Lembo, that was definitely a reliever,” Dolac said. 

And since getting back with Buffalo after the spring, it’s been a relatively smooth transition for Dolac, not that Lembo was ever concerned.

There was certainly some new lingo and scheme to learn as the Bulls pivot with a new coaching staff, but the veteran linebacker was expected to handle that with ease. So far, he has. And reacclimation with his teammates after a few months away has only made the process of learning the new contours of the Xs and Os that much easier for Dolac. 

Simply, he’s back where he’s meant to be.

“Realizing that, you know, maybe Buffalo really is for me,” Dolac said.