Jack Morgan | staff writer

It had been exactly five years to the day since the Duquesne Dukes and Robert Morris Colonials squared off on the gridiron. The Pittsburgh-area rivalry was renewed on Saturday afternoon at Rooney Field, and the Dukes came away with a 31-6 statement win to improve their Northeast Conference record to 4-0, knock RMU’s to 3-1, and assume control of their own destiny in the chase for a second-straight NEC championship.

Duquesne was guided by QB Darius Perrantes, who kept his stellar season going by throwing for four touchdowns and 231 yards. Three of those four went to his old Rhode Island teammate John Erby, who also racked up 126 receiving yards in the win.

Duquesne Head Coach Jerry Schmitt broke things down postgame when asked what he and his coaching staff saw from the duo.
“When you’re going to play man,” Schmitt said, “and you’ve got three receivers, your linebackers and your safeties got to come down and cover Erby. Sometimes that’s tough for those guys.”

Duquesne won the coin toss and elected to receive, something that teams tend not to do nowadays. However, it dealt the first punch with a dominant 11-play, 71-yard drive that concluded with the first TD pass from Perrantes to Erby.

“Sometimes we feel we’re confident in ourselves, confident in the preparation that we had all week,” Erby said on taking the ball first. “So we just go out there, focus on our jobs, execute, impose our will because it does something psychological to the other team taking the ball.”
 Erby found the end zone again after a stop by the Dukes’ defense, this time in the form of a 45-yard dime from Perrantes.

With a 14-0 lead, Duquesne was in good shape, but they tacked on one more Erby touchdown before the half for good measure. Perrantes lobbed a ball to him in the back-left corner of the end zone, and he got under it to come down with a wild diving catch to give Duquesne a 21-0 halftime lead.

Duquesne’s defense played a dominant game, led by Jack Dunkley and his three sacks. RMU QB Anthony Chiccitt had virtually no time all day, and he went down behind the line of scrimmage a whopping six times.

“[Dunkley’s] a really good football player,” Schmitt said. “But he’s got a lot of growth left. He can get so much better. And thankfully, he’s just a super person as well as football player.”

JaMario Clements continued to impress with another 100-plus yard performance. His 108 rushing yards were 31 more than the Colonials accrued all game. Duquesne totaled 383 yards of offense in the contest.

Things were chippy, as one would expect in a game against two longtime rivals. RMU had 7 penalties for 79 yards, and a couple of those were personal fouls that came when the game was already decided. Duquesne never retaliated to the Colonials’ instigation, keeping their cool.

“I thought it was extremely important ,and I’m really proud of them,” Schmitt said. “That’s outstanding for our guys to have that discipline and want to do what’s best for the team, because you want to play on the edge and these guys all want to talk at each other. But you can’t push it over the edge.”

“Yeah, the message of the week was to focus on us, no matter what happens,” Erby said. “I tell the guys, it’s not about what happens, it’s about how you react to it. And stay focused, stay focused on what we do. How we control the game. Once you start worrying about somebody else, that’s when the mistake comes. That’s when you start unknowingly giving them momentum.”

The rivalry will continue between the two squads in the coming years, as the Colonials are back in the NEC for the first time since 2019. Both coaches spoke highly of one another after the game and would like to grow the rivalry going forward.

“Even when we were in the Big South [Conference], I was doing everything I could to play Duquesne,” Robert Morris Head Coach Bernard Clark Jr. boasted. “I think it’s a rivalry that needs to go on.

“I’ve told people countless times; I wish they turned it into the Rooney Bowl or Steel City Bowl. Let’s get some sponsors for this and get it at a neutral site.”

Schmitt agreed. “[Clark] talked to me about playing a game at a neutral site or something like that. I said, well, you let me know, wherever doesn’t matter to us. We’ll play, you know?”

With two games left, Duquesne controls its own destiny. They’ll take on Wagner at home next week, who sits at .500. Afterward, Duquesne meets Central Connecticut on the road to round out the season.

Regardless, Duquesne could wrap the conference title up on Saturday. With a win over Wagner and an RMU win at CCSU, the Dukes would at least have the tiebreaker if they and the Colonials both finish 5-1.

Duquesne found themselves in this situation just a year ago, and they lost to Stonehill at home, opening the door for a de-facto championship game in the final week against Merrimack. It goes without saying, the Dukes would love a repeat of that at all costs. Schmitt feels confident that his team understands the task at hand.

“Yeah, our guys will understand that,” he said. “It’s great we have a number of guys from last year’s team. We have a bunch of new guys, but I told them last night in the meeting, we have experience, you know, we have leadership. It only helps if we use it to our advantage.”