DAYTON -- The University of Dayton football team, 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Pioneer Football League, plays its final regular season home game of 2016.  UD hosts Valparaiso, who is 3-6 and 2-4.  

The Valparaiso game is UD's Senior Day.  The Flyers' 22-man senior class will be recognized before the game, and at halftime, one of them will be named the winner of the Lt. Andy Zulli Trophy, a character-driven award that is the most prestigious in the program.

UD has won five in a row, and is looking to be undefeated at home during the regular season for the second straight year. 

On Tuesday, senior linebacker Christopher Beaschler was named a finalist for the National Football Foundation's Campbell Trophy, sometimes referred to as "the Academic Heisman.".

GOOD NEWS WORTH REPEATING
The Flyers entered the season with the 4th-best winning percentage (.757, 134-43) in FCS football since 2000 AND have produced the most football Academic All-Americans (23) at any level of competition in the same time frame.  The top five are Harvard (.805), Montana (.766), North Dakota State (.761), Dayton (.757) and San Diego (.705).

STREAKING
UD has not been shut out in a school-record 452 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.

WILL RECORDS FALL
• William Will was named the STATS National FCS Special Teams Player of the Week after the Morehead State win.
• He scored 15 points on 3-for-3 FG and 6-for-6 PAT kicking.
• His first field goal of the day gave him sole possession of UD's career field goal record.
• His second PAT broke the UD record for consecutive successful PATs kicked. 
• His third field goal matched his career long of 49 yards, and tied Drake alum Billy Cundiff for the old PFL record of 49 career field goals.  Will now has 53.
• Will is also fourth among active FCS kickers in career FGs, three behind the leader, Miles Bergner of South Dakota.
• He is the PFL career record holder for kick scoring with 299 kicked points.
• At UD, Will also ranks third in total points, 21 points behind All-American and renowned golfer Mike Duvic's UD-record 326.  Will has scored 84 points in each of the last two seasons.
• Will's UD-record of 71 PATs in a row ended at Jacksonville.
• In the PFL this season, Will is second in kick scoring (7.3) and FG's per game (1.33, tied) and third in FG% (80.0%., 12-15).
• He is 15th in FCS football in FGs per game.
• Will's 16 touchbacks are second in the PFL.
• Will has scored four of the five ways an offensive player can score in his career.  In addition to the commonplace field goals and PATs a kicker does, he has two other memorable scoring plays.
• He tried to break the internet in 2014 when he scored a touchdown on a 26-yard scoop-and-score of fumble during a kickoff return.
• At San Diego, he grabbed a blocked PAT out of the air, avoided two rushers and found Gus Madden in the end zone for a two-point PAT.
• Next on the bucket list:  a run for two points.

JUST IN TIME JESKE
• Against Stetson, he was nine for 13 passing for 82 yards on a windy day, added another 81 yards on the ground and guided the Flyers to two scores in two chances against the PFL's best red zone defensive team.
• After nine games, he is 118 of 221 passing (.534) for 1,490 yards, 12 TD's and five picks.
• Jeske leads the PFL in touchdowns responsible for (19, 7 rushing, 12 passing).

TOUGH LUCK TUCK
• In the only two games Tucker Yinger he has started and finished this season, he has run for 172 yards (Drake) and 193 yards (MSU).
• Unfortunately that includes the Jacksonville game, where he had 77 yards on just nine carries, before exiting the game two plays into the third quarter.
• He is not currently on the depth chart.
• Yinger started the season opener, but was injured in the first half.  He missed the Robert Morris and Duquesne games (injury), and came off the bench for 35 yards at USD.
• If Yinger had enough games to qualify, he would be second in the PFL in rushing (106.0) and have the second-best per-carry average among the leaders (7.3).
• Despite starting only five games after Connor Kacsor's career-ending injury last year, Tucker Yinger led UD in rushing yardage (731 yards) and yards per carry (6.1). 
• He was also fourth in the PFL and the only freshman in the top 10.
• He had 237 yards against Marist in 2015.

BIG-FOOTED SOPHOMORE
• Sean Smith leads the PFL in punting (41.9).
• In 2015, then-freshman punter Sean Smith led the PFL in punting average (41.9) and was the only freshman named First Team All-PFL.
• At Duquesne, he averaged 50.0 yards over six punts, with three inside the 20 & no touchbacks.
• He has been named the PFL Special Teams Player of the Week twice in 2016.

SUCCESS IN THE CLASSROOM
• In the last 16 years, the University of Dayton football program has produced 23 Academic All-Americans, the most of any college team. 
• In the history of the Academic All-America program, UD football has had 53 Academic All-Americans. 
• Among schools playing Division I football, only Nebraska (106), Penn State (63) and Notre Dame (58) have had more.  Oklahoma (52) and Ohio State (52) are next.
• The Flyers also had a PFL-record 81 players on the 2015 PFL Academic Honor Roll, the most in the PFL for the 21st time in the 23-year history of the league. 
• Dayton's current 992 APR score is the best in the PFL, the best in Ohio and third in the nation behind Dartmouth and Duke.
• UD is one of seven programs to receive APR Recognitions Awards in all 11 years of the APR program.  The other six are Cornell, Dartmouth, Davidson, Duke, Penn and Yale.

DAYTON AND THE CAMPBELL TROPHY
• Christopher Beaschler is a national finalist for the National Football Foundation's Campbell Trophy, the major award of the NFF's Scholar-Athlete Award program (aka, the Academic Heisman).
• Beaschler and the 11 other finalists will be honored at the NFF awards banquet at New York's Waldorf Astoria on Dec. 6. 
• Each finalist also earns an $18,000 post-graduate scholarship.
• UD has had at least a semifinalist for 11 straight years.  
• Five other PFL schools have a semifinalist this year.  Only Campbell has had a semifinalist for as many as the last four years.
• Among D-I schools, the Flyers are one of four institutions with a semifinalist in the last 11 years. The others are Austin Peay, Bucknell and Rutgers.
• In 2007, safety Brandon Cramer was one of 15 finalists for the trophy.  As a finalist, he earned an $18,000 post-graduate scholarship.
• Cramer was also the 2007 Division I football Academic All-American of the Year.

UP NEXT
• The Flyers close the 2016 season at Marist on Saturday, Nov. 12. 
• Game time is 1 p.m. ET.