The Day Butler Finally Beat Dayton

Uncle Rico’s Corner: the longer version of the stories I only half-tell at parties.

Dayton had been beating Butler for as long as I could remember. When I walked into the Butler Bowl on September 30, 2006, the Flyers were 3-0 and had won six games in a row. They had beaten us 11 straight times, including 41-7 the year before. We were 1-3 and coming off a 31-7 loss to Jacksonville in our conference opener. Nobody was picking us.

My own stake in it

Dayton had recruited me out of high school, and I was strongly considering going there. Late in the spring of 2002, they called to say they had enough linebackers in the class. I took that as a challenge. I chose a school that played Dayton every year, with a simple goal: show them what they had passed on.

By 2006 I had faced them three times: on special teams as a freshman in 2002, as the starting middle linebacker in 2003, and as an all-conference defensive end in 2004. I sat out 2005 with a medical redshirt. This was the one I wanted most, and I was a team captain at defensive end.

The veer option and the plan

Dayton ran a veer option attack, and it had given Butler fits for years. Option football punishes anyone who freelances. One defender who abandons his assignment to make a play, and the whole thing breaks open for a big gain.

That year, our defense was dialed in. We stuck to our responsibilities, trusted each other, and let the offense come to us. It sounds boring, but discipline is what beats an option team.

Hoyng never got comfortable

Dayton quarterback Kevin Hoyng had burned Butler in other seasons. This time he took a lot of hard hits from me, Richard Alcala, and both Marzotto brothers. He still threw for 289 yards, but he never got comfortable, and the one sack we got all day turned out to matter more than any of his throws.

On the other side, T.J. Brown threw for 267 yards and three touchdowns for us, including an 80-yard strike to Dan Bohrer that was the longest scoring pass in the league to that point in the season.

The block

Late in the game, Dayton scored to pull within one at 21-20. Then came the extra point that would have put them ahead. Richard Alcala came up the middle, got his hands on the kick, and it never got over the line. The block was his, and it was the difference in the game until the safety.

The safety

Later in the game, Chris Marzotto got to Hoyng in the end zone for our only sack of the day. It was a safety, and it put us up 23-20.

We ended an 11-game losing streak to a program that had owned us for years. I did not know it then, but I would get hurt in San Diego the following Saturday. I am glad that the last full game I played was one like that.

What I took from it

Preparation beats talent more often than people think, but only when everyone does their job. That Saturday, 11 guys did their jobs at the same time. I have been chasing that feeling in every team I have led since.

A side note from the corner

Dayton’s quarterback a few years earlier was Brandon Staley, who went on to coach the Los Angeles Chargers. He played quarterback there from 2001 to 2004, and I got to play against him too.