My daughter is the opposite of many kids here on CC - her favorite, and preferred, schools - and really, the only ones she’s applied to so far - are her safeties.
And yes, they are regional public schools.
Our state flagship is not a safety for a B student.
She disliked the small town/small school combo of almost all of the small LACs we visited, although they are more of an academic match for her.
She also did not want to be at a huge OOS flagship - even if it was as affordable as our own - because she felt they were too big.
She still wanted to be at a school that focused on undergrads.
She’s obsessed with marching band and wants to be in a college marching band. 
So she looked for “regional” or “directional” state colleges that had her potential majors, and marching bands, and that were within a half-days’ (8-9 hrs) drive from home.
I’m trying to encourage her to apply to a couple of small LACs that are more matches, but honestly, I’m not pushing too much, because I know she’d be really happy at ANY of the schools she’s already applied.
She never had a dream school, btw. She really knew nothing abut colleges before we started looking … she knew that if you have good grades and test scores, you go to UIUC - or, you go to one of the directionals and they throw ( little or a lot, depending…) money at you for picking them over UIUC or UW-Madison or IU-Bloomington.
Or if you’re a “genius” you go to Harvard or University of Chicago.
My kid never even heard of Northwestern, just up the road from us, before looking into college… We never watch college sports.
(She only knew of U of Chicago because she’d been on the campus before and to Hyde Park. )