By: by Wayne Cavadi | NCAA.com

NCAA Story

Winning the DII football championship is no easy task. The Minnesota State Mavericks have found a way to contend seemingly every year, battling the odds in an attempt to get back to their first national championship game since 2019. At 9-1 with the DII football championship selection show looming, the Mavs are hoping that battle will cumulate with a home seed, something they haven’t had in their past three tournament appearances.

“I'll tell you, I think this is probably the most talented team I've ever been a part of,” Mavericks linebacker and long snapper Jacob Daulton said.
Daulton should know. He’s been around a pair of Minnesota State playoff teams. But the battles and odds of making the DII football championship game are nothing compared to what Daulton has overcome.

On paper, Daulton is having a fine 2026 season. He’s racked up 40 tackles with 1.5 sacks and is arguably an even better long snapper. But what if I told you he was doing all that after more than two years away from the football field because he was serving a ministry.

Oh, and he also has just one kidney… after saving his father’s life.

A FOCUSed change of pace
Daulton was enjoying the end of his first career at Minnesota State during the 2023 season. He led the Mavericks in tackles and capped off his second straight All-NSIC First Team campaign as Minnesota State made it to yet another DII football championship. Thanks to a redshirt season as a freshman in 2019 and the COVID-19 cancellation, Daulton had one season left in the tank to come back and try one more time to hoist that national championship trophy.

But, as it turned out, something else came calling. A higher calling, if you would.

While Daulton was piling up tackles during that 2023 season, he had joined the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) as a missionary. When the time came to decide between one more season of football and pursuing FOCUS further, Daulton made the selfless choice, something that would become common place in his life.

“At the end of [the 2023 season], I thought God was calling me in the direction of ministry,” Daulton recalled. “I had friends who were doing [FOCUS], and I was really impacted by the ministry at Minnesota State. It kind of helped me discover my faith.

“So, I started to ask the question after my senior year of school, ‘What am I going to do next after football?’ And at the time, continuing football wasn't really at the forefront of my mind. I was really feeling called in this direction. So, after [the 2023 season], I was going to leave and pursue this ministry that I felt called into at the time. And that meant foregoing that last year of eligibility, which at the time, I was okay with that. I was at peace with it.”

It wasn’t that easy, though. Minnesota State lost to Augustana (SD) in the first round of the 2023 DII football championship, and Daulton felt his time with football was cut short. He asked his boss and mentor at FOCUS if he could do both, but unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards. Having already made the commitment to the ministry, Daulton was sent to Ohio State just a few short weeks after the Augustana loss to begin his new life.

Flash backwards to freshman year, and Daulton admitted that having a church on campus wasn’t a big draw. He joined a Bible study that he admittedly wasn’t consistent with early on, but then he felt the calling. He saw how the missionaries led a joyful life and were genuinely good people, and that was the path Daulton knew he should follow, even if it meant ending his football career.

Now at Ohio State and working with student-athletes as part of FOCUS, Daulton recounted that his day-to-day consisted of discipleship groups, Bible studies and investing in deep friendship with these college athletes. He led mission trips and traveled to conferences and was fortunate to go to Belize, Peru twice and the Dominican Republic before leading a pilgrimage to Rome.

Now, if you’re good at math, you may have figured out that the timing would have had Daulton at Ohio State the same time the Buckeyes won the national championship in 2024. “I think being around high-level football and high-level athletes, there's a natural competitiveness in you that's like, man, could I have maybe done it here?” Daulton recollected whether that game gave him the itch to return to the football field. “Being around high-level athletes and investing in them, becoming friends and leading guys in their faith journey, I realized how passionate I still was about sports.”

There was only one problem. Daulton wasn’t actually on campus for the Ohio State national championship. He was getting ready to save a life.

Ron Daulton is the father of seven children: five boys and two girls. During Jacob’s final season, he found out he was in Stage 3 kidney failure. “What they found out by doing a kidney biopsy and a bone marrow biopsy was that it wasn't necessarily just a fading bad kidney,” Ron told NCAA.com. “It was my own immune system attacking my kidney.”

Ron began a journey that was tougher than any two-a-days his son may have endured during his football career. He went through 25 chemotherapy sessions from 2023-24 as the doctors tried to kill his immune system to stop the attack on his kidney. Nothing worked. Stage 4. And then, Stage 5. His kidney stopped functioning and he began retaining water, so much so that Ron — normally 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds — was suddenly well over 300 pounds.

On Oct. 12, 2024, Ron’s daughter wed. By Oct. 16, Ron began dialysis. Five hours a day, three days a week.

“I went for probably a month or two, and they put my name on the National Kidney Foundation list for recipients for a kidney," Ron said. "And the gal called me, and she said you need a transplant or you're going to have to stay on dialysis.”

It was an eye opener for Ron. He began sending out letters to as many people as he could. As he remembered the nurse telling him, his Christmas card list, his golfing buddy list, his hunting list — “send a list out and just say, ‘Hey, this is what I'm going through, this is what I'm experiencing. If any of you have any interest in seeing if you're a potential match for a kidney donor, it would be greatly appreciated.’ ”

Ron was lucky to have plenty of golfing and hunting buddies, because he got 23 responses. He was overwhelmed by the outreach and the testing began, to the point that they finally found a match. However, shortly after, the match reconsidered and backed out. It was at that point they suggested testing his children.

The two daughters were out because losing a kidney could cause potential problems down the road with pregnancy. His eldest son was a match… but his first child was expected right around the potential surgery date, so he was out. His son Devin was a match, but he had arteries running through his kidneys, so he was out. The third son was a bit too heavy, and the youngest son was just 18 years old, so he too, was out.

And then there was Jacob. A perfect match.

Ron DaultonJacob Daulton fishing
“I remember being on that phone call and we had settled on this decision that if I'm the best match, I think I'm going to do this,” Jacob said. “It's hard for [my dad] to imagine a son giving a kidney to him, but he is very grateful. How cool, as a father, to see your sons willing to go through that. I just imagine being a dad, it's got to be pretty cool. So, when it came down to it, there wasn't a hesitation.”

“I didn't want my kids to be my donors,” Ron said. “That was hard for me to accept. I didn't want him to do it. You kind of feel as a parent, 'I should be the one sacrificing for you, right? Not you for me. I've lived my 60 years. You, you go do something, you go have a family. I'm done with that.' ”

But it was a no-brainer for Jacob, and on Jan. 21, 2025, Ron Daulton had a new kidney and Jacob Daulton was left with one. Jacob stayed home from Ohio State for three more weeks and recovered alongside his father, watching "Band of Brothers" and "Masters of the Air."

“We had this morning routine where we both got up and my mom and me and him would go to mass every day, and then we'd come back and just make a huge breakfast,” Jacob recalled. “Looking back at it, that was amazing. It was so much fun, because I don't remember the last time I just got to hang out with my parents for that amount of time.”

Jacob, who had just given up a kidney mind you, was sure to point out who he felt should get the accolades. “If you're going to mention anyone in this story, you should mention my mom,” Jacob said. “She's the real hero in all of this. She's a PT, she owns her own clinic, and she was swamped with work at the time. And she took off somehow for a month, actually many, to be able to take care of my dad and me initially.”

All great things come to an end. By the fifth week post-surgery, Jacob was Rome bound on the pilgrimage and then back to Ohio State.

Don’t call it a comeback
Minnesota State AthleticsJacob Daulton yelling as Minnesota State rises in the DII football rankings. 
Jacob’s girlfriend was an Ohio State women’s hockey player. In the middle of January 2026, the Buckeyes traveled to familiar territory for Jacob, and he tagged along for the trip to Mankato.

“Of course, I ran into the coaches who I've always had great relationships with,” Jacob recalled. “They're amazing guys. We tossed around the idea, joking a little bit. This was in January of this year. The whole time, this kind of inspiration that I'm having with the Ohio State athletes keeps building. I go back to Columbus, back to my normal life, and for the next three months, it's all I could think about.”

There was just one small problem. When Jacob had his kidney removed, he was originally told there was no way he would ever play contact sports again. Jacob had already accepted his career was over, but he had that itch that just couldn’t be scratched. So, he called his doctor with tempered expectations.

“I'll never forget that phone call,” Jacob said. “[The doctor] expressed a lot of trust in me, which I really appreciated. He's very wise and he was like, 'Typically, I would probably shut this down, but a guy like you has shown me how much you care for your body. You study this stuff and you've clearly rehabbed yourself back to health. And not only do I think that we can figure it out and keep you safe, but it sounds like you need to go do this.’

“It's crazy,” Jacob continued. “You get told you'll never play contact sports again. And then the same doctor says, 'Actually, I think you can do it.' From that point on, they were super supportive. My nurse coordinator was like, ‘I'm rooting for you. I hope you get to go play again.’ ”

“I remember having a conversation with him at Weggy’s [On Campus],” Minnesota State head coach Todd Hoffner told me. “I had a lot of apprehensions, and none of them had to do with his ability to lead, to be a football player, or to excel. My biggest concern was his health, well-being, welfare and his ability to perform without a piece of his body that he gave to his father.”

“We talked with the doctor, and he said there's so many people in sports and athletics that have one kidney,” Ron remembered. “Maybe not competitive like football, but he said runners and bikers and triathletes and these people, lots of them have one kidney. And he said there's actually a thing called Donor Games. So, [Jacob] was planning on doing that, and he started the training for that until he decided to go back to football.”

The road back wasn’t an easy one. He suffered a minor setback with a sports hernia, but by August was ready to go. And here we are. Ron flew to Grand Junction to see Jacob’s first action in more than two years... and he hasn't missed one since. Aside from being the long snapper, he recorded three tackles in a 38-14 victory that spurred the Mavericks’ nine-game winning streak that now has them atop the NSIC and sitting at No. 4 in the latest NPI for Super Region Four. He also happens to be a William V. Campbell semifinalist, the "Academic Heisman."

And his coach knows that no matter what the stat line says, Jacob is a large part of the Mavericks' success.

“When he speaks, you can hear a pin drop,” Hoffner said. “He's thought-provoking. He will take information and absorb it, and then he's never a negative reactor whether it is criticism, scrutiny, people challenging him or his brotherhood.

"Psychologically and emotionally, he has a lot of things that I don't think he knows he has. You know, we inherit these young men, no matter if it's Jacob Daulton or anybody else, we inherit a level of character. And it's our job to enhance that character, to make them better, to challenge them, to push them to try and be all they can be. But he brought a really high bar to the table. And to elevate and raise that is difficult, but it's also enlightening to others that he can take a step back and understand everything and still be thought-provoking, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent.”

Ron DaultonJacob Daulton and his father after another Minnesota State football win.
As for his father? Remembering seeing his son back on a football field, well, it turned on the proverbial waterworks.

“As you can imagine, it was emotional,” Ron said. “Not only just to see him out there with one kidney and kind of in disbelief that he's even doing that, but two, that I'm just grateful to him. Grateful for the sacrifice that he made for me, or I probably wouldn't be sitting there watching that game. I might be dead; I might be sitting in the dialysis room somewhere trying to pick it up on a live stream. But I was just grateful to even be there, just knowing that he did that for me, and here he is still playing.”

The Mavericks travel to Fargo, N.D. this final weekend to face off against MSU Moorhead, and then Daulton hopes there are five more games left in the final act of a miraculous career. From there, he said, he still has NFL dreams of being a long snapper, a position that may not shine bright in the box scores but is a rarity to find someone as talented as Daulton to do so. Whatever happens, Daulton has had a heck of a ride.

“I'm having a ton of fun,” Jacob said. “I love it. It's been really great, and every weekend this fall, I've been so grateful for the support system. My worlds are colliding; Mankato friends, my family, missionary friends — they are all coming to the games. And it's just been like a party every Saturday. It's been so fun.”

Wayne Cavadi has covered all things Division II sports for NCAA.com since 2015. Subscribe to his best-selling Substack, The DII Report, for even more DII analysis. Past credits and bylines include hosting the weekly DII Nation Podcast available on Spotify and YouTube, Bleacher Report, MLB.com, AJC.com, SB Nation, FoxSports.com and in print publications like The Advocate and Lindy's Sports. Follow him on Instagram at @the_DII_report and X/Twitter at @WayneCavadi_D2.

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