Dayton opens 2022 football season Saturday at Robert Morris

Notre Dame legend Knute Rockne was the first. William Alexander, John Heisman’s successor at Georgia Tech, was the second.

Chamberlin enters his 14th season as head coach at Dayton with a record of 99-44. He arrived at Dayton in 1975 after graduating from North High School in Springfield and has never left, spending the majority of his career on the staff of Mike Kelly.

Now Chamberlin seeks to join his predecessor Kelly (246-54-1) and the program’s first coach of the modern era, Harry Baujan (124-64-9), in the 100-win club. He’ll get his first chance at noon Saturday when Dayton opens the season against Robert Morris at Joe Walton Stadium in Coraopolis, Pa. Also on the line is Dayton’s 497-game scoring streak, the longest active streak in college football.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in camp, and then we finally got into Robert Morris last weekend,” Chamberlin said Wednesday. “So things are starting to come together. Our offense, with all the veterans that we’ve had there, they’ve been rolling throughout camp, and I’ve seen improvement on the defensive side of the ball.”

Here are five things to know about the opener and the 2022 Flyers:

1. Scouting report: Robert Morris and Dayton were supposed to play in the season opener in 2021, but the game was cancelled because of positive COVID-19 tests at Robert Morris.

Neither team had another game cancelled. Robert Morris finished 4-6. Dayton won its last three games to finish 6-4.

Robert Morris was picked to finish sixth in the Big South. Dayton leads the series 19-3 and won the last meeting 34-31 in 2019 at Robert Morris.

“Robert Morris has always been a physical team both on offense and defense,” Chamberlin said. “They’ve got a new quarterback. That’s going to be something we’ll have to look at as we go into the game. We’ll get a feel for what his strengths are and go from there.”

2. Most improved player: Chamberlin put redshirt freshman cornerback Jeremy Jonozzo in this category.

“He was a wide receiver last fall,” Chamberlin said. “We moved him to corner in the spring. Right now, he’s No. 1 at one of the corner positions. He played corner in high school, so he knew about it. He’s just a tough, athletic, physical kid who’s really stood out for us here as we’ve gone through camp.”

3. Standout freshmen: There are two true freshmen from Dayton’s 30-man 2022 recruiting class on the two-deep depth chart: Chase Brown, a defensive end from Moeller; and Ben Heufner, an offensive tackle from Olentangy Liberty in Powell.

4. Defensive strength: Linebackers Ben Schmiesing and Nathan Arthur impressed Chamberlin and offensive coordinator Josh Hendershot in the preseason.

Schmiesing is a Piqua High School graduate and now a grad student at Dayton who started his career as a walk-on at Ohio State and transferred to Dayton last year and finished third on the team with 74 tackles.

Arthur, of Cincinnati St. Xavier, is a first-time starter.

“You can’t block those guys,” Chamberlin said. “They get to the ball so well. Ben, in the second year in our program, he has all the talent. Now he understands things. Arthur, a senior, has always had the ability, but now he is really locked in as a disciplined linebacker.”

5. Long wait: Like Schmiesing, Joe Durham is a graduate student. He will start at defensive end after being limited to two games last year because of plantar fasciitis.

Durham, a Fenwick High School graduate, played in only three ames in his first three years at UD. He redshirted in 2018, saw brief action in 2019 and then saw the 2020 season cancelled because of the pandemic.

“It’s been too long,” Durham said. “It was about this time last year I got the injury put me out for all the last two weeks last year. So I got a little taste, but I’m definitely ready to go and fired up.”

SATURDAY’S GAME

Dayton at Robert Morris, Noon, ESPN+, 1290, 95.7