Savannah’s Daylan Dotson deliberately added pounds as he moved from defensive end to defensive tackle since transferring to the University of Central Florida this year.
He’s also carrying the extra weight, figuratively speaking, of a chip on his shoulder.
Dotson has felt that he has something to prove since he was a lightly recruited standout linebacker in a successful Jenkins High School program. Years later, after becoming a two-time FCS All-America defensive end at the University of Tennessee at Martin and now reaching the FBS level at UCF of the Big 12 Conference, the redshirt senior remains motivated to erase any doubts.
“Everyone goes through tough times. Everyone has adversity throughout their lives,” Dotson said in a telephone interview last week from Orlando, Fla. “I believe having that chip on your shoulder is the extra power you need to prove someone wrong. Like no one ever thought I could be this far. Every time I take the field or run out an exit, it’s always on my mind.”
The 6-foot-3, 270-pounder (up from 255) said that his friends back home in Savannah will remind him that people didn’t think he had the talent to play big-time college football, but look at him now. He tells himself the same thing.
“That’s on my mind every time I put the helmet on,” Dotson said. “They’ve got to feel you every time.”
The redshirt senior is making his presence known on his new, undefeated squad. He made three tackles, including 1.5 for loss, in the season-opening 57-3 victory over New Hampshire on Aug. 29. He put up the same statistics in a 45-14 win over Sam Houston on Sept. 7.
Dotson totaled two tackles in UCF’s dramatic 35-34 comeback victory on Saturday September 14, at conference foe TCU.
“Whenever my number gets called, I’m going to take advantage of my opportunity,” Dotson said. “I just want to help the team.”
He had hoped to get to this level much sooner after helping Jenkins make deep playoff runs on Jason Cameron-coached squads with many college prospects.
Dotson thought Alabama A&M, an FCS program, was his destination, but verbal commitments are a two-way agreement and not binding.
He recalled that as National Signing Day approached on the first Wednesday of February 2020, he hadn’t heard from Alabama A&M for a week or so. “Starting to get skeptical,” as he put it, Dotson called a coach that had been recruiting him about not receiving the paperwork for the national letter of intent.
“Coach was telling me, ‘We’re not taking you any more,’ ” he recalled. “It was so fast.”
They had offered and intended to sign another recruit, he said.
Dotson said he still had an opportunity with his hometown university, Savannah State, which had transitioned from FCS to NCAA Division II, but offers from FCS or bigger programs had dried up.
Then, on the Monday night before signing day, around 9 or 10 p.m., he got a text from an assistant coach at UT Martin asking what he thought about playing for the Skyhawks.
“UTM hit me out of nowhere,” recalled Doston, who didn’t think anything about UTM. “I was looking them up, doing research. I didn’t even know where UTM was or what the Skyhawks were. I was like, this is God putting it on my table. It’s an opportunity I’ve got to take. I went out there and made the best of it.”
Dotson, who first visited the campus after signing with UTM, didn’t know what he was going to do when the offer he depended on what taken away. With this sudden offer from UTM, he said, “I feel like no one can tell me God isn’t real …”
Raised in a household strong on faith – his mother, Annette Bellamy, is a senior pastor at a local church as well as fifth-grade teacher at Juliette Gordon Low Elementary – Dotson understood his prayers had been answered.
Sensational Skyhawk
He did make the best of it at UTM, playing in four games as a true freshman for the 2020 season (pushed to spring 2021 due to the COVID pandemic) and preserving his redshirt status. He played in 11 games as a redshirt freshman in 2021 when the Skyhawks won the first of three outright or shared Ohio Valley Conference championships and advanced to the second round of the FCS playoffs.
Dotson was a force for his next two seasons as All-OVC as well as an AFCA FCS All-America second-team selection in 2022, and a 2023 first-team FCS All-America by Phil Steele and second-team FCS All-America by the Associated Press and FCS Football Central.
He made 11 starts on the defensive line in 2023 and made 51 tackles, including 19.5 tackles for loss (fourth in the FCS) and seven sacks. No wonder he was a finalist for the annual Buck Buchanan Award for the most outstanding defensive player in the FCS.
After four seasons at UTM, he entered the transfer portal and got a lot of interest from FBS programs, including Virginia Tech. Former SSU head coach Shawn Quinn, who had recruited Dotson for the Tigers, is a defensive assistant coach at Virginia Tech, and he and Dotson got in contact.
“Coach Quinn is a great coach. More than that, he’s a great person,” Dotson said. “I have high respect for him. When I entered the portal, he called me and we talked. It was nice to hear from him. It showed that he still believed in the type of player I am, even though he’s at a higher (level) school. I feel like he’s always seen that in me, so I really appreciate him for that.”
He also got a call from UCF defensive ends coach Kenny Ingram. Dotson had heard a lot of good things about UCF, including the game atmosphere, from UTM teammates from the Sunshine State. They watched Florida college teams play on TV. He also liked the logistics of round-trip travel from Savannah to Orlando.
As a bonus, he would learn that the UCF roster included redshirt freshman linebacker Troy Ford Jr., who starred at Calvary Day School. Dotson didn’t know Ford but recalled attending a Cavaliers game during an in-season visit to Savannah and thinking, “Who is this dude? He’s going crazy.”
Now he sees Ford every day at practice and they’ve become close friends.
The Knights and Daylan
Ingram sold Dotson on the UCF program without over-promising.
“Being the person that I was coming through the portal, you know schools offer you this and that,” Dotson said. “I felt that Coach Ingram was the most authentic, most real. He told me when you come in, you’re going to have to work for everything. He wasn’t like, ‘Come in, everything’s yours. A spot is waiting for you.’ It was ‘come in and work.’
“I felt like coming here would be the best place for me to improve my game instead of coming in already being ‘the guy.’ I wanted to work to be ‘the guy.’ I wanted to work to prove myself. That’s what made me come to UCF.”
Proving himself has been a theme for Dotson, who also responds to authenticity, a trait he admires in sports journalism and broadcasting. He studied communications at UTM and said he’s on track to graduate in December with a degree in interdisciplinary studies at UCF.
Dotson would like to pursue a professional career in communications, and he enjoys sharing opinions and connecting with people. He’d also like to have a shot at a pro football career, and UCF offers the resources and opportunities to foster that possibility.
But the Knights come first.
“If I’m out there doing my job, the rewards will come and everything comes,” Dotson said. “We’re out there winning. I don’t want to be too much of a selfish guy and just be like that. I’m here to give a boost to my team. I know if I perform well, it’s going to boost everything.”
Photo Credit: UCF pitures courtesy assistant athletic director, strategic communications, Justin Wilson, Jenkins photos RDP Production (Kyunnie Shuman) and Dotson social media page
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