Eastern Illinois (0-2) at Dayton (0-0)
Welcome Stadium (11,000) •  Dayton, Ohio
Sept. 11, 2021  • 12 p.m.  •  TV: Facebook Live
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NOTES TO KNOW
• Eastern Illinois plays its third game of the season this week as the Panthers head to Dayton, Ohio to face the Flyers for the first time. EIU is 0-2 on the season following a Week Zero loss at Indiana State and Labor Day weekend loss at South Carolina. Dayton returns to action for the first time in 658 days after opting out of the 2020-21 season and then having their scheduled opener canceled due to COVID-19 concerns with their opponent. It will be the second opponent this year that EIU faces that has not played since the 2019 season.
• Eastern Illinois will have a handful of players returning to play in the Buckeye State when the Panthers kickoff at Dayton on Saturday. Seven players on the active roster are Ohio natives including
Otto Kuhns,
AJ Sanders, Matt Spofford,
Phoenix Porter,
Simon France,
Matthew Bean and
Logen Neidhardt. The Panthers also feature former Dayton Flyer
Jay Vallie on the roster, though Vallie will not play this season due to injury.
• Eastern Illinois faced an opponent from the Southeastern Conference for just the second time in program history last Saturday night in Columbia, South Carolina. The announced crowd of 64,868 was the third largest crowd to ever watch an Eastern Illinois football game trailing only EIU games at Penn State (104,488) in 2009 and Iowa (70,585) in 2010. Â
•
Kaelin Drakeford picked up the Panthers first sack of the season and created EIU's first turnover gained with a sack and forced fumble on Saturday at South Carolina. The fumble was recovered by
Blake Ruffin. EIU had its streak of 16 consecutive games with forcing at least one turnover snapped in the Week Zero game at Indiana State. In the shortened 2021 spring season EIU had ten turnovers gained (five interceptions / five fumble recoveries).
• Safety
Jordan Vincent led the Panthers in tackles on Saturday night at South Carolina as the second year player finished with nine tackles including a half tackle for loss. Vincent is currently tied for the team lead for tackles with 12 stops (seven solo). He has added one pass break-up and one quarterback hurry to his season totals.
