Nov. 5, 2005

Recap | Box Score | Notes

Head Coach Jerry Schmitt

"Our defense has been outstanding all year, and today was no different. They help excite our offense and get things going. This was just a great day. To win the MAAC title in front of the 1995 team, which started it all, and to have Coach Gattuso here made it a special day.

"I thought Kevin Rombach played with all the poise of a two-game veteran (joking) ... seriously, we had prepared him all week because we had a pretty good idea he was going to be the starter. He did a great job.

"Travis Taltoan has been playing for the past few weeks, but hadn't put up any big numbers. We saw the potential in him at camp. I think it was just a matter of him getting comfortable with the offense."

NOTE: Duquesne honored the 1995 MAAC Championship team (DU's first league champions) at halftime

Senior middle linebacker Harry Carter

"I have to credit our coaches. Our coordinator, coach [Joe] Bernard, watches a lot of film and always has us well prepared. We've set a lot of goals. One was to win the MAAC and another is to lead the nation in defense. We want to keep our defense at No. 1.

"We know our offense is young and because of that we can't afford to give anything up. With Kevin [Rombach] making his first start, we didn't know what to expect but we knew we had another challenge. We knew we were prepared and we had confidence that the offense would get the job done."