Michael O’Grady | sports editor
In their first six meetings, Duquesne football had never beaten Youngstown State over an 11-year span. Out of all the programs that Duquesne had never won against entering the 2024 season, the Penguins owned the longest winning streak over the Dukes.
Until Saturday.
Duquesne flipped the script this time around, and drove out of Stambaugh Stadium in Youngstown winners by a score of 28-25. It was a huge win for the Dukes on so many levels; not only did they finally down the Penguins, they avenged last November’s 40-7 FCS playoff defeat that came at the hands of Youngstown. To add to the significance, it was just Duquesne’s second win ever over a ranked FCS team, Youngstown had been ranked No. 20. But perhaps most importantly, Duquesne avoided an 0-3 start after being outscored 97-10 in their first two games against FBS opponents.
“It showed me that we’re a gutsy football team right now, and to come back off those two games, I give them a ton of credit,” Duquesne Head Coach Jerry Schmitt said. “Staff also, keeping guys positive, making them believe that what we were doing before was making them better even if the scoreboard didn’t show that.”
Quarterback Darius Perrantes followed up one of the worst games of his college career with a stellar performance, finishing 17-of-26 with 157 yards and two touchdowns, both to Tedy Afful. Running back JaMario Clements torched the Penguins for 204 yards on the ground, the most by a Duke in six seasons. Clements had two carries that went 70+ yards, including a 75-yard house call. The defense also made plays in timely fashion with three sacks from three separate players and an interception.
Defensive lineman Jack Dunkley talked about how Duquesne’s history with YSU was a big pregame motivator for the team.
“We had a chip on our shoulder coming into this game,” Dunkley said. “We’ve never beat them before, and after last year’s playoffs, definitely came in here with something more than the first two weeks.”
Early on in the game, it became clear Duquesne’s primary objective was going to be stopping Youngstown’s rushing attack, as the trio of Tyshon King, Ethan Wright and QB Beau Brungard refused to go down on contact in the first half. Brungard’s dual-threat ability was especially on display, and not always to his advantage. On the first YSU drive, he picked up a first down himself on 3rd-and-3 at the Duquesne 25. He tried rushing again on second down and fell over, giving Gianni Rizzo the free sack. YSU would settle for a field goal.
Duquesne responded immediately. Clements blew past the Penguin defense with a 72-yard rush, by far the longest of his career to that point, but was tackled three yards short of the end zone. Shawn Solomon Jr. would finish the job on the next play for his first college TD, giving the Dukes the 7-3 lead.
Youngstown would regain the lead in the second quarter when Brungard walked in for a touchdown, capping off a 71-yard drive where he picked up 29 yards himself. After a Duquesne three-and-out, the Penguins ran a nine-minute drive and rushed a combined 72 yards, punctuated by a 5-yard score by King to go up 17-7.
Schmitt had praise for Brungard.
“That quarterback’s a heck of a football player,” he said. “You gotta keep him structured and contained.”
Facing a situation where YSU received to start the second half, Perrantes put on a clinic of a two-minute drill. Passes to Joey Isabella, Jermaine Johnson and Afful got first downs, and then on a 3rd-and-8 with 20 seconds left, Perrantes threw an end zone shot from the YSU 18 intended for John Erby that was flagged for pass interference. From the 3, Perrantes found Afful for a touchdown, and the Dukes went into halftime only down three.
“We’ve had a number of those situations, we’re down a touchdown, or 10, or 14, we had the ball and just didn’t put it in, and I think to do that just gave us great confidence,” Schmitt said. “For us to convert there was a big confidence builder, it was timely. I knew walking down the ramp there that the guys were confident, they believed, they knew we were right there, and we could win this football game.”
Brungard started the second half getting his receivers more involved, including a long pass to Max Tomczak that safety Antonio Epps was called for interference on. It appeared Youngstown had reverted strictly back to the ground game following that play, until Brungard threw a wobbler inside the Duquesne 15 that Epps picked off in the end zone for a touchback.
“[Epps] saw me over there growling at him a little bit, because you gotta play the next play,” Schmitt said. “I said you’re gonna get one coming to you. I didn’t know it’d be an interception. That’s how our guys understand that no matter what happens, you make a mistake then you go play the next play.”
The wide receiver corps were the story of the next drive, as a diving catch from Erby converted a 3rd-and-19 situation, and Afful made two impressive catches for first downs on the next two plays. Afful caught his second touchdown of the day to end the drive, barely keeping his feet in the white lines to give Duquesne a 21-17 lead they’d keep for good.
In the fourth quarter, the Duquesne defense locked up Brungard on two drives sandwiching a Duquesne three-and-out. Dunkley recorded a sack to end the first drive, his third in three games, and Nico Pate forced YSU into a 3rd-and-21 with 3:30 left that the Penguins couldn’t convert. The Dukes got the ball back, just needing to kill time, but Clements bested his rush in the first quarter with a 75-yard TD that all but sealed the game.
“I had to [score],” Clements said. “A lot of my teammates were getting on me about getting caught for that first one, so that second one I knew I had to pick it up and go score.”
YSU would score a touchdown to make it a three-point gap with the little time they had left, but Duquesne recovered the onside kick to officially make the upset. The locker room was jubilant as the Dukes celebrated their first win of the year, one that had been unlikely.
“[The Duquesne defense] did an unbelievable job of staying in the gameplan,” Schmitt said, “making slight adjustments, staying in it, because there was a time there where it looked like Youngstown was running the football on us and controlling play-action opportunities down the field. So they just hung in there, played tough, had a great second half. Coach Jacobs and his staff did a great job making some adjustments.”
“Everybody’s saying we all executed our jobs, we all played our hardest, but that’s the standard,” Dunkley said. “We gotta come in every single week with that level, that mentality and energy.”
After three weeks on the road, Duquesne finally has their home opener Saturday at noon when they take on Division II West Virginia Wesleyan at Rooney Field.