Dayton names three captains after 2025 spring game

Credit: Erik Schelkun

Credit: Erik Schelkun

It was an offense vs. defense scrimmage at the Jerry Von Mohr Practice Facility.

“We had a big pick six by Vinny Firenze,” Andrews said. “It was a great play. Then we put some consistent drives together. Drew (VanVleet) started a little slow at quarterback. Some of that was on him, but some of that was great plays by the defense. It was great to see him respond and come back and take them down on some drives.

“To me, it was just about getting the young guys in there and getting reps in front of people for the first time. I don’t bring officials out much, but we bring them out for the spring game and use that as a teaching tool for these guys. If you practice all the time, you can get away with some stuff. When they’re throwing flags on you, it’s always good for the guys to have that experience.”

There was one injury of note at the spring game. Redshirt freshman wide receiver Noah Dudik suffered a broken arm and underwent surgery Monday.

After the spring game, Dayton announced its captains for the 2025 season: cornerback Cam Cope, who will be a redshirt junior; offensive lineman Ben Huefner, who will be a redshirt senior; and offensive lineman Ryan Iiams, who will be a graduate student. The players vote on the captains.

“They did a great job choosing,” Andrews said. “You always wonder, as a coach, which direction it is going to go. You go through it as a staff and see who you think they’ll pick. I try to do a significant amount of educating about what a captain does and what we want out of them because you don’t want it to turn into them picking who they think is the best player. You want a combination of a lot of things. You work on coaching leadership, but I think that one of the big things that a captain needs to be able to do is communicate. They’ve got to be a great communicator with the coaches and a great communicator with their teammates and not just within their position group but with the whole team. To me, it’s a huge honor. A lot of these guys were captains in high school. To be basically picked as a captain from a pool of captains, that’s a big deal.”

Dayton starts preseason practices July 30 and opens the season Aug. 28 at Eastern Illinois.

“The guys go home for Easter,” Andrews said, “and then when they come back, we meet with them all and have our end-of-the-year exit meetings and talk with each one of them what they’re doing well and what they’ve got to improve on to get them set up so that they can put their best foot forward in August.”