Special Captain: Godfrey ready for Senior Day and beyond

Dalton Godfrey’s long snapping duties for the South Dakota football team technically begin and end with what happens on punts, field goals and extra points. 

That’s the way it works for most long snappers. You do your snapping and you go to the sidelines and you wait for your next opportunity to avoid the kind of mistake that would put your name in the game story. It’s a harsh but accepted part of the world of long snapping: Your only guaranteed route to notoriety is via spectacular error.

So how did Godfrey, a sixth-year player, become a captain for the 2022 Coyote football team? It’s a long (snapping) story. 

“He’s the first guy in my 30 years as a head coach that I’ve ever had who is a specialist and also a team captain,” said USD coach Bob Nielson. “The guys have a great deal of respect for him because of his work ethic. It’s everything from offseason training to the weight room to his commitment to developing his craft as a long snapper.”

Godfrey, an FCS Phil Steele All-American last year as well as first-team All-Missouri Valley, was an excellent football player – in addition to mastering his long-snapping responsibilities – at Cedar Falls High School. He was being recruited as a linebacker by several schools when USD offensive line coach Andrew Prevost talked to him about playing FCS level football exclusively as a long snapper. 

It wasn’t how Godfrey figured he was going to be spending his college years but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. After redshirting his first season at USD he took over for Brandon Godsey, another long-serving long snapper of distinction. Godfrey has since then been good enough to warrant curiosity from the NFL while becoming a leader within the football program. 

He’ll be playing in his last college game against Northern Iowa at the DakotaDome. He’s one of five seniors on the team who can say the same. For all of them, it’s a little weird how quick it all went by. In Godfrey’s case that’s six years of quickness. 

“It was June 17th, 2017,” Godfrey said. “That’s when I moved to Vermillion. It’s been quite a ride. It feels like I moved here yesterday. You try to tell the younger guys that they don’t understand how fast it goes but you can never really do it justice. I know it’s been a real pleasure to be here for those six years. That part I know for sure.”

Godfrey is moving away from Vermillion in December. He’ll be one online class short of his second masters degree, something he’ll complete during the spring semester.

He got his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology and sports management three and a half years after his college academic clock started ticking. Then he got his first masters in kinesiology and sports management by the end of his fifth year. Because the COVID season gave him another year of eligibility he went after one more – a masters in business administration he’ll officially complete with one more online class this spring. 

Who needs a weight room? Godfrey could have built his strength just lugging around those grad-level textbooks.

“It’s not exactly how I planned it,” he said. “But I did come in knowing I was going to redshirt the first year and I’d have a chance to get a masters degree after five years if I took a heavy class load and took summer classes. Then COVID hit and we got another year. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do at first, then I figured, ‘Oh well, I might as well start another one.’ I couldn’t fit it all in but it’s just the one online class this spring that I have left.”

Godfrey is getting married next spring to Kayla Wilson, a fellow Cedar Falls native who is now a resident pharmacist at the University of Iowa hospitals and clinics. 

In addition to getting married, he’ll also be pursuing one of the NFL’s 32 long-snapping jobs as he begins mapping out a career path.

“Working with athletes is awesome,” he said. “I don’t know if I want to nail myself down to one particular sports team so I’m thinking something in administration would be good because you get to work with everybody.”

He is enthusiastic about putting those two masters degrees to work but the benefits are already present. He can have conversations that he couldn’t have before.

“My dad owns a business – he runs car dealerships,” he said. “Getting the business administration degree helps because we can talk to each other on a business level and I can actually understand what’s going on and know what he’s talking about. And I can talk to David Herbster about athletic administration issues throughout the year because I remember it from my curriculum. I don’t feel like I’m quite ready to go out into the real world yet but it’s nice to know that once I get out there I’m going to have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.”

His good friend Jack Cochrane, the former Coyote linebacker now playing for the Kansas City Chiefs, has given him insight into preparing for the NFL’s annual search for new prospects. Godfrey would like to land college all-star game opportunities, hire an agent and begin training that is targeted toward posting flattering NFL testing numbers.

The NFL’s interest in Godfrey will include a lot of the same things that have made him a strong presence at the college level. He can get the ball to the hands of the intended target very quickly and mind-numbingly consistently and he’s also an excellent athlete entirely capable of making himself useful on a punt, for instance, after he has snapped the ball.

“I’m sure he could have ended up being a college linebacker,” Nielson said. “It’s interesting when you have guys who have been positional players in high school make the transition to being specialists in college. When he took on that role he did it understanding the importance of that role for the entire football team.”  

Godfrey estimates he has made about 15 tackles during his career. He blames his punters – good friend and former roommate Brady Schutt and current punter John Bickle – for not having more tackles. They’ve boomed out too many of those coveted no-return fair catches. 

Godfrey was part of one of the greatest days in Coyote long-snapping history in a win over South Dakota State in 2019. In that game, Godfrey forced and recovered a fumble while covering a punt, then downed back-to-back punts inside the 5-yard-line. He was named the conference specialist of the week after that, earning the honor over kickers and return men.

Performances like that lead to being named a team captain when coupled with the respect of colleagues. Doing the job that everyone sees will likely continue to earn him Missouri Valley and national recognition again this year. Being one of the Coyotes’ captains has come for the things only his teammates and coaches see. And they don’t just see it once a week, they see it every day. 

One of the benefits of being a specialist is that you see everything happen,” Godfrey said. “At practice you’re going live for about 10-to-20 minutes a day and for the other hour-and-a-half you’re doing your own drills and examining what is going on. You can tell when guys are feeling low or they’re not putting the effort into something that they should. Sometimes you call them out. Usually they know already. They look at it like, ‘Yea, that’s a guy who is trying to make us a better team.’ They learn to trust you that you have their best interests in mind.”

Godfrey estimates he has been on the field for less than an hour over the course of his entire USD career. Precious moments? No, it’s the rest of it that has been precious.

“All the guys I’ve joked around with, all the great friends who can put you in a good mood for the day – that’s what I’m going to miss the most,” he said. “It’s all about the guys you hang out with. It’s going to be weird not seeing them every day.”