It might have only been 50 minutes, but Duquesne football played a spring football game which featured a two-point conversion, multiple timeouts called in the final minute and even officials warned a bench but when the dust settled, it was Team Smith over Team Jacobs 15-14 Saturday afternoon at Rooney Field.
The teams were named for the Luke Smith, the program’s wide receivers coach/director of operations and Mickey Jacobs the pass game coordinator/secondary coach and special teams coordinator.
This was a contest also based in having fun with each roster divided up and players on each side being able to showcase some of their abilities.
Darius Perrantes led Team Smith with 83 yards on 4-of-5 passing and a touchdown pass to Tedy Afful. Afful had 114 yards through the air catching all four of his targets.
Sophomore quarterback Xavier Rice paced Team Jacobs with 89 passing yards, completing 8 of his 12 passes. Alex Gochis earned 37 yards including a touchdown.
Defensively Team Smith saw Justin Harris’s three tackles take top honors, while Antonio Epps made his presence felt, returning an interception 70 yards.
A total of 12 Team Jacobs defenders each recorded a tackle, meanwhile Kevin O’Donnell came away with an interception.
The 50 minutes were played over a half featuring a running clock.
This game was attended by several players families as the day prior, Duquesne had a private ceremony in which it received rings.
Following the contest, head coach Jerry Schmitt and Afful spoke to reporters about the game, the rings, spring practices as a whole and where the team presently feels it is at.
