In their only past meeting, Penn ripped Duquesne 51-10 in the 2003 season opener at Franklin Field. Duquesne had dropped its second of only three games that year, and lost to Penn by the biggest margin of the season, 41 points.
In an identical situation two years later, Penn starts off the football season Saturday hosting the Dukes. Trying to lead the Pittsburgh school back from the embarrassing loss against Penn is new head coach Jerry Schmitt.
While they had some trouble with the Quakers in 2003, Duquesne (2-0) has been a very solid football team. Since coming to Division I-AA in 1993, the Dukes have won eight Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Championships, and went 7-3 last season en route to the title.
After his success at Duquesne, coach Greg Gattuso left this year to work as an assistant under new Pittsburgh coach Dave Wannstedt. This opened the door for Schmitt, the head coach at Division III Westminster College.
All Schmitt would like to do is keep the victories coming.
"There are not a whole lot of changes that I'm looking to make," Schmitt said.
"Coach Gattuso did a great job in building this program, so I hope to continue what he has done."
Schmitt has spent the last five years at Westminster, his alma mater, but most of his experience came at Duquesne, where he was an assistant for 11 years, coaching under Gattuso for seven of those seasons.
The Dukes have always had a solid team, and this year should be no different. They return much of their starting lineup from the 2004 season, including defensive tackle Josh Antinopolous, who was Street & Smith's top MAAC defensive player last year, and is ranked as the seventh-best tackle in the Sports Network's I-AA positional rankings.
"We have some experienced players on the defensive side of the football," Schmitt said.
"We have a number of starters back on offense, and the starters returning are helping carry the young kids getting used to our offensive system."
One of these young kids is freshman starting quarterback Scott Knapp. Knapp has some big shoes to fill. Last year's starting quarterback Neil Loebig -- who was a four-year starter -- is one of only five players in Division I-AA history to throw for over 10,000 yards and 100 touchdowns. In fact, since 1995, the Dukes have started only three different men under center, an amazingly low number for a college team.
"He's done a very good job," Schmitt said of Knapp.
"Obviously that's a position that's very important to the whole football team. His first two games, he had a good start. He remained poised for his first college football game."
This weekend Schmitt and company come back to Philadelphia to avenge their 41-point loss from two years ago to the Quakers, which came in front of the biggest crowd (8,181) Duquesne has played in front of since they moved into Division I-AA. And Schmitt knows Penn will certainly be a very tough team to beat.
"They are a very talented group of players," Schmitt said.
"We're most concerned about controlling their offense, they have an excellent quarterback. They have a defense that does a great job of getting to the football and is very disciplined."
Being at a school that has won a conference title as often as Duquesne has, it is hard not to have high expectations. However, Schmitt, as the cliche goes, will take the season one game at a time.
"We always set out to play our best in every football game and try to come out on top every game," Schmitt said.
"If we meet those goals, our second goal is to win our conference championship."
