Saturday’s Game Kicks Off At 1 P.M. ET

DAYTON — The University of Dayton football team returns home Saturday when Stetson visits Welcome Stadium.  

Dayton is 4-2 on the season, and 2-1 in the Pioneer Football League after last Saturday’s 24-7 win at Marist.  

St. Thomas is the only undefeated team in conference play, with six teams (including Dayton and Stetson) with one league loss.

Saturday’s Stetson game will be UD’s annual Football Alumni game.  Members of UD’s 1987 team will be honored on the 35th anniversary of their NCAA Division III national runner-up season.  The Varsity D Club will host a pre-game tailgate for all football alumni attending the game.

GOOD NEWS WORTH REPEATING
The Flyers entered the season with the fifth-best winning percentage (.727, 168-63) in FCS football since 2000 AND have produced the most football Academic All-Americans (35) in Division I in the same time frame.  The top five in winning percentage are North Dakota State (.808), Harvard (.756), Montana (.754), San Diego (.736) and Dayton (.727). 

PLEDGING THE 700 CLUB
The Flyers are three wins away from becoming the ninth team playing at the FCS level to win 700 games.  The previous eight members of the 700 Win Club are Yale, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, North Dakota State, Dartmouth, Delaware and Lehigh.

PFL POWER
• The Pioneer Football League is in its 30th season.  The original (and now the only) Division I strictly need-based football league began with charter members Butler, Dayton, Drake, Evansville, San Diego and Valparaiso.  
• UD’s 131-46 record is the best in PFL history. 
• The Flyers’ 12 league championships are the most in PFL history.  San Diego also has 12.

THE MAN AT THE TOP
• Rick Chamberlin is now in his 14th season in charge of Flyer football. His record is 103-477.
• He is the 16th active FCS coach with 100 career wins.
• Chamberlin is just the third D-I coach (out of 429 with 100 career wins) to play for his alma mater, immediately join (and never leave) the coaching staff, and then become the head coach while only doing all at one school.
• The first two were Knute Rockne, and the man who succeeded John Heisman at Georgia Tech, William A. Alexander.
• He is third all-time in wins at UD, behind two College Football Hall of Fame members– Mike Kelly (246 wins) and Harry Baujan (124). 
• After coaching the Flyers to the FCS playoffs in 2015, Chamberlin was named the 2015 AFCA District Coach of the Year and the PFL Coach of the Year.  He was the school’s first AFCA District Coach of the Year, and his PFL honor was the ninth for a Dayton coach.
• Chamberlin is also in his 48th season as part of the Flyer football program.  A Flyer All-American linebacker in his playing days, he has been a part of 396 of UD’s 696 wins – 26 as a player, 268 as an assistant coach, and 103 as a head coach.  He has also been a part of 518 of UD’s 1,111 games. 

THE MAN AT THE TOP IN THE PFL
• Rick Chamberlin is the winningest coach in Pioneer Football League history, with 76 wins. 
• No other PFL coach has 60 league wins. 

CAPTAINS, MY CAPTAINS
• The Flyer co-captains for the 2022 season are senior running back Jake Chisholm, graduate linebacker Ben Schmiesing and senior offensive guard Brian Stevens. 
• Senior wideout Derek Willits is this year’s special teams captain.  

CHISHOLM EARNS PRESEASON HONORS
• Co-captain Jake Chisholm is on the Stats Perform Walter Payton Award Watch List.  The Payton award goes annually to the FCS offensive player of the year.   This is the third consecutive Flyer season a Dayton player is on the watch list (Adam Trautman, Jack Cook).  Chisholm is one of 10 Payton finalists from last returning to the list this season.
• Chisholm is also on the Stats Perform and HERO Sports Preseason All-America Second Teams as an all-purpose runner.

CHISHOLM TRAIL
• Jake Chisholm was a Second Team Stats Perform FCS All-American last year as an all-purpose runner after finishing second in FCS football in all-purpose yardage (163.9 yards per game).  He also led FCS in rushing attempts per game (23.5) and touchdowns per game (1.8).  
• In 2019, he led FCS in all-purpose yardage (204.3 yards a game) after carrying the ball 153 times for 1,129 yards (and eight touchdowns) while also catching 21 passes for 230 yards (and three touchdowns), and returning 29 kickoffs for a 23.6 yard average (with one 97-yard TD vs. Duquesne).  
• He entered 2022 as the UD career all-purpose yardage record holder (now 4,798 yards).  He is also sixth in career rushing (2,621).  Next is Dave Jones (2,684). 
• Last year, Chisholm became just the second Flyer to have back-to-back 1,000 yard seasons (Tucker Yinger was the first in 2017 and 2018.).  Chisholm led the Pioneer Football League in rushing (103.3 yards per game in 10 games) and scoring (11.0 points per game), as well as all-purpose yardage in 2021.   Chisholm also caught 30 passes for 361 yards, which was the second-most on the team.
• He is a two-time Stats Perform FCS Third Team All-American as an all-purpose runner.   

CLASS ACT
• Not only is Jake Chisholm a multi-year All-American on the field, he is a multi-year CoSIDA Academic All-American in the classroom. 
• He was a second team Academic All-American in 2019, and first team in 2020 and 2021.  
• He is the tenth University of Dayton football player to be named a First Team Academic All-American at least twice, dating back to UD’s first football Academic All-American in 1970.  The others are Christopher Beaschler, Brandon Cramer, Greg French, Steve Lochow, Tim Quinn, Dan Rosenbaum, Brandon Wingeier and Tucker Yinger.  
• Chisholm is also just the eighth Flyer student-athlete to earn any sort of Academic All-America recognition three times (he was named Second Team Academic All-America in 2019).  The others are baseball’s Tom Beechem, cross country’s Amy Fleck, and football’s Cramer, Leisring, Rosenbaum, Wingeier and Yinger. 
• No Dayton student-athlete has ever been named a four-time Academic All-American.

ARMS RACE
• Redshirt freshman Shane Hamm was 11-for-19 for 105 yards with a touchdown in his first career start at Marist.
• He completed his first five passes at Marist.
• He redshirted the 2021 season, and was Scout Team Offensive Player of the Year.
• He quarterbacked Archbishop Hoban to three state championships and had a 50-3 record as a four-year starter.

SCHMEISING, SCHMEISING
• Defensive captain Ben Schmeising is enjoying a second college football career.  
• A former Buckeye walk-on from Piqua, he graduated with honors from Ohio State in three years and pursuing his MBA at Dayton.
• At Robert Morris, his first career interception set up the eventual game-winning TD.
• He had 11 tackles and two red-zone PBU in the Drake win.
• Schmiesing leads the team in tackles (48). He also has three BU and an interception.  

KING ME
• Senior linebacker Nathan Arthur had 10 tackles at Marist, with a fumble forced, a fumble recovered and a sack.
• He leads the PFL with three fumbles forced.
• He is second for UD in tackles (41).

UP NEXT
• Dayton will host another team that enters this week with one PFL loss when Valparaiso comes to town.
• The University will be hosting a reunion of the late Matt Dahlinghaus’ teammates.   Dahlinghaus died as a result of injuries suffered in the Flyers’ game with Bowling Green in 1972.  UD and his teammates will be dedicating a new memorial to Dahlinghaus at Dayton’s Jerry Von Mohr Practice Facility.
• Game time is 1 p.m. ET.

COURTESY DAYTON MEDIA RELATIONS