Some baseball teams like to wait around for a three-run home run in order to win the game. It is not a usual strategy for football teams, but it was one that the Quakers ended up executing Saturday.
And the five big plays that Penn made turned a potential nail-biter into an easy 27-point win.
After a five-play, 13-yard opening drive that ended with a punt, Penn got the ball after a poor Duquesne punt on the Dukes' 43-yard line. Then came the first home run -- a 43-yard strike from Pat McDermott to Dan McDonald on the very next play.
That gave the Quakers a 7-0 lead three-and-a-half minutes into the game.
After two more sputtering drives, it was the Red and Blue special teams that hit a long ball.
A crowd of Quakers broke through the Duquesne line and blocked David Kovalcik's punt, with senior safety Casey Edgar's ensuing return bringing the ball to the Dukes' 5-yard line.
It took three plays, but McDermott snuck the ball over the line to give Penn a 14-7 lead.
Three more drives came and went, with only three more points for Penn, but with 18 seconds left in the half, the Quakers began to blow the game open.
After a Duquesne punt, McDermott again struck quickly, finding Matt Carre over the middle on a post pattern. The junior evaded one would-be tackler and sprinted the rest of the way for a 44-yard touchdown.
Then, on the first play of the second half, senior cornerback Michael Johns stepped in front of a Duquesne receiver at the 29-yard line, intercepted the ball, took off down the left sideline, and hurtled into the end zone for a touchdown and a 31-7 Quakers lead.
Penn tacked on a late score on a 22-yard pass to Carre on the first play of the fourth quarter, the last of Penn's five big plays of the game.
Quakers coach Al Bagnoli acknowledged the importance of those plays in the outcome of the game.
"It's the foundation for a lot of points, so obviously ... they were huge plays."
"We were in a competitive game, playing tough, and that put a bigger spread on it," Duquesne coach Jerry Schmitt said. "And to give up the interception, for a touchdown, those two things really burst our bubble."
And the final game statistics may emphasize that point even more.
If not for the three long touchdown passes, McDermott was 7-17 with 36 yards and one interception.
The Quakers gained a healthy 197 yards rushing, but many of those happened because they had a big lead and were just running the ball in order to milk the clock.
Penn had the ball for just about two thirds of the second half, after the Dukes had the advantage in the first half.
Duquesne did not play great by any means, finishing with only 218 yards of total offense and allowing Penn to convert nearly half of their third downs -- seven of 16. Despite this, the Dukes did have a chance to hang around late in the game.
But Penn's home run hitters would not allow it.
The problem for the Quakers is that many of their other opponents will not give up the long ball as readily as Duquesne did.
