DAYTON -- The 107th season of University of Dayton football will commence when the Flyers open the 2015 season on Saturday, Sept. 5.  The Flyers will visit Robert Morris in a 12 noon ET kickoff. 

The Flyers were picked to finish second in the Pioneer Football League in this year's poll of the league's coaches.  This is the 23nd season of the PFL.  UD's 11 titles are the most in league history.

Dayton finished 8-3 overall and 6-2 in the PFL in 2014.  The Flyers finished tied for second in the Pioneer Football League and had their 37th winning season in the last 38 years last year. 

Rick Chamberlin is beginning his eighth season as UD's head coach and returns 14 starters (seven offense, six defense, one specialist) from last year.

Dayton is led by senior running back Connor Kacsor, who is UD's career record holder in rushing yardage.  A preseason All-American, Kacsor was the 2014 PFL Offensive Player of the Year after gaining 1,547 yards and scoring 17 TD's. 

Kacsor is one of three Flyers who were voted Preseason All-PFL by the league's coaches.  Joining him are linebacker Christopher Beaschler and defensive end Nate Sudnick.

Beaschler, a captain this season, led the team with 101 tackles a season ago. He was named First Team All-PFL for his efforts.  He is one of just seven players who were named First Team All-PFL and First Team Academic All-PFL in 2014.

Sudnick returns to the line after a breakout season in 2014. Sudnick had 64 tackles, including 11.5 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks.  He also had one int.

GOOD NEWS WORTH REPEATING
The Flyers enter the season with the fourth-best winning percentage (.738, 124-41) in FCS football since 2000 AND have produced the most football Academic All-Americans (22) at any level of competition in the same time frame.  The top five in winning percentage are North Dakota State (.845), Harvard (.799), Montana (.775), Dayton (.738), and San Diego (.698).
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STREAKING
UD has not been shut out in a school-record 431 straight games, the best such active string in all of college football. The last team to shut out the Flyers was Marshall, 9-0, on Oct. 16, 1976. That is also the all-time FCS record.

SERIES STUFF
• Dayton leads the series with RMU 15-2, and has won the last 12 meetings.
• The Flyers won 31-7 last year in Dayton.
• The 24-point margin was the most in the series since 2001.
• Connor Kacsor carried the ball a season-low 13 times for a season-low 47 yards in the game.

SCOUTING THE COLONIALS
• Robert Morris was 1-10 in John Banaszak's first season as head coach. 
• The Colonials were picked to finish seventh in the Northeast Conference this season.
• Top offensive returnee for RMU is sophomore running back Rameses Owens, who gained 562 yards in seven games in 2014.
• The projected starting quarterback is Mathew Barr, a true freshman from Troy, Ohio who enrolled in time for spring ball last spring. 
• Redshirt senior inside linebackers Jake Tkach and Mike Stojkovic led RMU with 84 and 82 hits last year.  Both had 10 TFL as well. 

PFL POWER
• The Pioneer Football League is in its 23rd 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 96-31 PFL mark is the best in PFL history.

600 CLUB
• The Flyers were the 11th NCAA FCS team (and the first west of the Alleghenies) to win 600 games in its football history in 2008.
• The 16 members of the club, heading into the 2015 season are: Yale (884), Harvard (848), Penn (830), Princeton (804), Dartmouth (676), Delaware (674), Lehigh (671), North Dakota State (671), Lafayette (669), Dayton (649), Northern Iowa (641), Cornell (633), North Dakota (625), Colgate (625), Holy Cross (613) and Brown (.601).
• Of the 600 Club members, Dayton has played the fewest seasons (106, nine fewer than Northern Iowa's 115).