Rick Chamberlin announces 26-man Dayton Flyers football recruiting class

Dayton Flyers football coach Rick Chamberlin announced a 26-man 2021 recruiting class on Friday.

The difference between this class and every previous class in UD history: the coaches didn’t get to see any of the players in person because of the pandemic. They relied on Zoom calls to get to know the players and sell them on UD and film to evaluate their skills.

“Zooms and phone calls can get very boring and stale,” Chamberlin said. “You always worry, ‘Does the young man have a true feeling for the university?’ We sell the university first, and the best way to do that is to be on campus and to get a feel for everything. You have your routine in recruiting that you believe in when it comes to going to their schools and them coming to your place. An old dog like me had learned some new tricks.”

Chamberlin plans to keep some of those new tricks. Dayton will still use Zoom calls sometimes but combine them with visits to campus. The NCAA lifted recruiting restrictions June 1. Dayton coaches immediately hit the road to see future recruits at camps. That was another thing they missed last summer.

“We really don’t start getting into the recruiting until May of their junior year,” Chamberlin said. “That’s when we start putting our list together, and then that’s followed up by evaluating at camps throughout the summer and then them coming on campus during the summer and then throughout their senior fall seasons.”

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Some of the players in the 2021 class didn’t get to play fall seasons in 2020. Four of the players come from Illinois, which delayed the fall season to this spring. That also made evaluating the talent difficult.

When the freshmen report to campus Aug. 8, it will be the first time Chamberlin has met any of them in person.

“I’m hoping that 6-4 tackle is 6-4 and not 6-0,” Chamberlin said with a laugh.

Despite the difficulties putting the class together, it’s full of promise. Here’s what fans should know about the group.

• This is tied for the smallest class in the last nine years. Dayton had 45 recruits in 2020, 35 recruits in 2019, 26 in 2018, 35 in 2017 and 38, 36, 38 and 28 players in the previous seasons.

Chamberlin wanted at least one player for every position but had to limit the number of recruits this year.

“It’s always hard to tell young man, ‘Hey, we don’t have a spot for you,’” Chamberlin said. “But we reached our limit because we can only have so many on our team. That number’s around 120, and we have seniors that are coming back because the NCAA gave them that extra year, like Brandon Easterling and Jake Chisholm. Their senior season would have been last season. And we had a large freshman class in 2020, so that cut down on this number.”

• There are 13 players from Ohio in the group and also recruits from North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas and Virginia.

• Eighteen of the players were captains of their high school football team. The 26 players have an average GPA of 3.7 and an average ACT score of 25.

🚨Breaking🚨

After all said and done, Logan Miller has officially broken Bishop Fenwick High School's Total Tackles record with 2⃣8⃣5⃣ total tackles! The previous record was set at 281.

Good luck to whoever tries to beat that record 😈 pic.twitter.com/hWXhXskl7J
— Falcon Football (@FenwickFootball) December 3, 2020

• One of the local graduates on the list is Bishop Fenwick safety Logan Miller, who owns the school record for career tackles (285).

• Another record holder in the class is wide receiver Jalen Hamilton, who set a St. Laurence High School (Ill.) single-game record with 14 receptions.

• One of the recruits, Kings High School running back Ty Stylski, is the son of a former Flyer. His dad Mike played for Dayton from 1994-97. Ty averaged 147.6 yards per game and scored 16 touchdowns in seven games last season.

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• Three of the players combined to win six state championships.

Quarterback Shane Hamm, of Hoban High School in Akron, was 50-3 as a starter. Hoban won state championship teams three times while he was high school: 2017, 2018 and 2020.

Dante Casciola, a quarterback from Weddington High School just south of Charlotte, N.C., played for two state championship teams.

Linebacker Aiden McKinley, of Trinity High School in Louisville, Ky., won a state championship last fall.

Credit: David Jablonski

Credit: David Jablonski

• There is one transfer among the recruits. Linebacker Ben Schmiesing, who was the Greater Western Ohio Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior in 2017, played the last three seasons as a walk-on at Ohio State. He graduated from Ohio State in three years and will work on his MBA at Dayton. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining.

Dayton recruited Schmiesing when he was a senior at Piqua, but he decided early on in the process to accept Ohio State’s offer to be a preferred walk-on. When he earned his business degree this spring, he contacted the Dayton coaches and asked if he could play for the Flyers.

“He’s already here this summer,” Chamberlin said. “He’s working out with our strength coach, and he’s fitting in very well. He’s the type of young man that we thought he would be back when he was a senior at Piqua.”

2012 Dayton Flyers football recruiting class

Quarterbacks

Dante Casciola, Weddington High School (N.C.), 6-1, 190

Shane Hamm: Hoban, 5-11, 180

Running back

Ty Stylski: Kings, 5-10, 180

Tight end

Kevin Roberts: Hillard Davidson, 6-3, 230

Wide receivers

Caleb Gossett: Olentangy, 6-3, 185

Jalen Hamilton: St. Lawrence, (Ill.), 6-1, 185

Jeremy Jonozzo: Brecksville, 5-11, 160