After being best friends, teammates and classmates at PCA for three years, Dayton Toney and Riley Wilson decided to keep this friendship alive as both of them committed to play football at the University of Hawaii last spring.
The University of Hawaii was selected to play in the New Mexico Bowl at Toyota Stadium in Frisco this season. Both Riley and Dayton were excited to compete in this event as friends and family did not have to travel to see them play.
“The bowl game was a blast,” Wilson said. “There’s nothing better than me being back in the hometown with family and friends who came out and supported me. It was good to see familiar faces and people that have been with me since day one.”
In Wilson and Toney’s first bowl game, the Rainbow Warriors defeated the Houston Cougars 28-14. After winning a state championship in 2017 at PCA, these players are already used to winning big games. But at Hawaii, Coach Todd Graham praised the people that Wilson and Toney are off the field just as much as he praised the type of players that they are.
“Both of those guys (Dayton Toney and Riley Wilson) have great promise,” Coach Graham said. “Obviously they are high character young men that work extremely hard.”
After playing for a program that emphasizes your character just as much as your on-field success, Toney was prepared to step into Todd Graham’s system at Hawaii.
“Coach Cunningham’s “Rock-solid Anthem” is really close to what Coach Graham is trying to get across,” Dayton said. “It’s just being one tough dude that can put his head down and go through anything.”
Toney and Wilson are both exactly the kind of players that Coach Graham wanted in his program due to the fact that they are great athletes as well as great men.
*In recent news: Hawaii will be adding another PCA Alumnus, former Baylor linebacker Solomon Turner.
Noah is a PCA graduate from the class of 2019 who is currently majoring in Sports Media at Oklahoma State University. He is a writer for Oklahoma State’s student newspaper “The O’Colly,”a scout for Prep Hoops, and a videographer for Overtime. If you have any questions for Noah, he can be contacted by email at [email protected]
