Last week Penn coach Al Bagnoli said he expected Duquesne to pass "around 50 or 60 times."
Fifty or 60? Try 18.
After preparing all last week for what was supposed to be Duquesne's prolific passing game, the Penn secondary was hardly tested by quarterback Niel Loebig.
When he said last week "you couldn't ask for a better game" as a defensive back, safety Bryan Arguello certainly was not expecting the Dukes to run the ball more than twice as much as they passed.
In a 28-21 loss to Bucknell three Saturdays ago, Loebig attempted 50 passes, completing an impressive 26 for a total of 344 yards.
Saturday, however, the Dukes' offensive strategy changed.
Hoping that the element of surprise would catch Penn's defense off-guard, Duquense opted to run the ball an unanticipated 40 times -- nearly 70 percent of the time.
"We felt we had to run the football," Duquesne coach Greg Gattuso said. "We thought we had some success running the football. We probably caught them a little off-guard. That was the game plan."
When Loebig challenged Penn's defensive backfield, the Quakers responded.
Led by the efforts of Arguello, Seth Fisher, Pat McManus, Rudy Brown and Doug Middleton, the Penn secondary held Loebig to seven completions on just 18 attempts for 116 yards.
"I think we had a good game plan going into the game," Middleton said.
Middleton, Arguello, and linebacker Steve Lhotak each intercepted Loebig once, while McManus, Brown and Fisher each broke up one passing attempt.
The Dukes' running attack did yield some positive results. Running back Mike Hilliard ended the evening with 101 yards on 27 carries.
"They were giving us more run then they were giving us pass," Gattuso said.
In Gattuso's view, Penn's secondary was not the only -- or even the primary -- consideration in passing less.
"We were very concerned about protection," he said. "We have a very young offensive line, and [Loebig] took some hellacious hits early in the game. I was not going to expose him to the type of hits he was getting early in the game."
Gattuso stressed that keeping Duquesne's "jewel" out of harm's way was far more important than winning a game which had no implications on his team's chances of winning its league or a national championship.
When Loebig took big hits from Michael Sangobowale and Brown early, his elbow went black and blue, causing a wave of trepidation on the Duquesne sideline.
"Somebody crushed him on one of those plays," Gattuso said. "We were really concerned. I'm certainly not going to expose him to a beating when I don't have to."
Bagnoli offered a conflicting explanation, saying the Dukes were running the ball as a way to minimize possessions.
"I don't think [running the ball] was their intention early," he said. "I think maybe once the score started to mount a little bit, that was their way of shortening the game. They had a decent amount of success throwing the ball in the first half."
Without their leader Kevin Stefanski, the inexperienced Penn secondary looked to Saturday's game to prove itself.
And with a decisive victory against a potentially dangerous quarterback, the defensive backs displayed their mettle, dominating Loebig and his wide receivers throughout the game.
