DAYTON -- The University of Dayton football team opens its 113th season by hosting Eastern Illinois. 

After waiting 651 days since Dayton played a football game that counts, the Covid pandemic had one more twist for the Flyers.  UD's scheduled opener with Robert Morris was cancelled last week due to Covid in the RMU program, and Dayton had to wait seven more days to open the 2021 season.   UD opted out of the 2020-21 football seasons due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dayton will be led by captains Jake Chisholm, Jack Cook and Brandon Easterling.  The 2021 special teams captain is Joe Bubonics.

Cook and Easterling are both on the Stats Perform national watch lists for the Walter Payton and Buck Buchanan Awards, respectively.  

Chisholm and Easterling were also named Preseason All-Americans.

GOOD NEWS WORTH REPEATING
• The Flyers enter the season with the fifth-best winning percentage (.733, 162-59) in FCS football since 2000 AND have produced the most football Academic All-Americans (34) at any level of competition in the same time frame.  
• The top five in winning percentage are North Dakota State (.801), Harvard (.7538), Montana (.7537), San Diego (.741) and Dayton (.733). 

STREAKING
• UD has not been shut out in a school-record 487 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.

PFL POWER
• The Pioneer Football League is in its 29th 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 124-42 record is the best in PFL history. 
• The Flyers' 12 league championships are more than any other PFL team.  San Diego has 11.

UP NEXT
• UD will go on the road, traveling to Carbondale, Ill. to visit Southern Illinois of the Missouri Valley.
•Game time is 7 p.m. ET
•Dayton's next home game will be the Pioneer Football League opener.
•The Flyers will host new league member Presbyterian. 
•Kickoff with the Blue Hose is at 1 p.m. ET.