Oct. 18, 2008

Final Stats |  Quotes

The University of Dayton football team jumped out to a 41-0 lead en route to the 600th win the program's history as UD beat Davidson 41-22 Saturday at Davidson. The Flyers remained undefeated in the Pioneer Football League (3-0) and improved to 6-1 for the season. Davidson is 2-4 overall and 1-3 in the PFL. Dayton has won its last nine PFL contests.

Flyer head coach Rick Chamberlin has been involved in exactly half of UD's 600 wins - 26 as an All-American linebacker from 1975-1978, 268 as an assistant coach from 1979 to 2007, and now six as a new head coach this year.

Dayton is the 11th institution in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision to reach the 600 win milestone. The others are Yale (850), Penn (793), Harvard (793), Princeton (778), Fordham (776), Dartmouth (643), Lafayette (638), Delaware (631), Lehigh (622) and Cornell (615).

The Flyers were led by quarterback Rob Florian who engineered the UD offense to scores on all seven drives he directed (Dayton had a one-play possession at the end of the first half). Florian was 21 of 24 passing for 200 yards and no interceptions. He did not throw for a TD, but ran for one and caught a pass from Ben Shappie for another. He was UD's second-leading ground-gainer, behind Shappie. Shappie carried the ball 10 times for 57 yards, and Florian had 13 for 51. Shappie scored a pair of TD's.

The Dayton defense held their third straight opponent under 100 yards total offense in the first half. Steve McDonald led the way with eight solo and 12 total tackles. Scott Vossler had both of UD's sacks, and forced a fumble that Sean Heenan picked up and returned 77 yards for UD's final touchdown. Vossler also had an interception, as did J.J. Vercammen. UD limited Davidson to 37 yards rushing.

UD took control early by sniffing out and recovering a Davidson onside attempt on the game's opening kickoff. Kevin Burns fell on the loose ball on the Davidson 30, giving the Flyers a short field to work with. Five plays and 30 yards later, Shappie ran it in from the three.

Dayton then put together back-to-back long touchdown drives. Florian's one-yard quarterback sneak capped off UD's longest drive of the year (84 yards) to give the Flyers a 14-0 first quarter lead. Florian's other score, an 11-yard throwback pass from Shappie, came after a 14-play, 80-yard drive. A Nick Glavin 31-yard field goal made it 24-0 at halftime.

Glavin added a 34-yarder and Shappie scored on a two-yard run to give the Flyers a 34-0 lead heading into the fourth quarter. On the next series, Vossler sacked Davidson's Ryan Alexander, forcing the fumble that Heenan took the other way to make the score 41-0 with 11:58 left.

At that point, the Dayton coaches substituted freely on both sides of the ball, and the Wildcats came to life, outgaining UD 194 to two. Alexander threw for three TD's (66 yards with 11:39 to go, 10 yards at the 6:55 mark and 12 at 1:12) to make the final score 41-22.

The Flyers return home next Saturday to meet Valparaiso. Game time at Welcome Stadium is 1:00 p.m. ET.