Duquesne Dukes 2026 Season Preview

Winning Without the Metrics

Jerry Schmitt's group finished 7-5 and 5-2 in the NEC, the kind of record that reads clean on the page, yet the No. 76 power rating says the underlying performance was shakier than the win column. That gap between results and rating is the real story into 2026: Duquesne has been finding ways to win close conference games without the profile of a dominant team. The question for Schmitt's staff is whether that league success was a repeatable formula or a product of a soft conference slate that will not hold up to the same scrutiny again.

Buy Low on the Line, Sell High on Luck

Duquesne ran the ball at an 18th-ranked clip and held opponents to 328 yards a game, but the 7-5 finish leaned on a 2-0 mark in one-score games and a plus-3 turnover margin, both the kind of thin margins that rarely repeat. The league-game numbers back that up: Duquesne's actual win rate in conference play ran well ahead of what its yardage margin against those foes would predict, a gap that points toward regression, not another leap. The bigger swing factor for 2026 is Carson Camp, who threw for 1,794 yards and 14 touchdowns at Southeastern Louisiana in 2025 and now projects as the answer at quarterback for an offense that ranked just 95th in passing yards a year ago.

Tyler Riddell's 2,011 yards and 25 touchdowns walk out the door, and Duquesne hands the offense to Carson Camp, a Southeastern Louisiana transfer who threw for 1,794 yards and 14 scores last season. Camp takes the first-team reps into camp as the front-runner, but the job is not settled, with Logan Kushner (145 yards, 1 TD in limited work) and Nate Harper and Tyler Soles, both unproven, still in the mix. The bigger question is what Camp does with a run-first attack that ranked 18th in rushing yards per game but only 95th through the air, since Duquesne's 28.4 points per game came from the ground, not a passing attack he's tasked with upgrading.

Ness Davis is the workhorse Duquesne builds around, coming off a 898-yard season that anchored a ground game which finished 18th nationally in rushing yards per game. Taj Butts and his 578 yards and 4 touchdowns are gone, but the room hardly starts from scratch, with Shawn Solomon Jr. (379 yards) and Dazhaun Hopkins (201 yards, 2 TD) both back to soften that loss. With Davis leading a run scheme that already produced 5.93 yards per play, the bigger swing factor for 2026 is whether the passing game, 95th in the country a year ago, can start pulling its weight so defenses stop stacking the box against him.

Joey Isabella's 63 catches and 11 touchdowns walk out the door, and nobody left in this room has caught more than 13 passes in a season. Ryan Petras turned his 13 grabs into 5 scores and becomes the clear big-play answer, but Khiryn Boyd's 12 catches produced zero touchdowns, and Belal Abdelrahman, Zae-Mear Correll, DL Hardison and Shane Sandrew all arrive with no prior stat line to lean on. That leaves Petras to carry a passing attack that was already 95th nationally at 180 yards per game, with a ground game averaging 190 yards a night likely asked to cover for an unproven receiving corps again.

Daniel Tarabrella and Garrett Harrold split the receiving work at tight end last season, each catching 8 balls, with Tarabrella's two touchdowns to Harrold's one giving Duquesne a modest but reliable safety valve behind a run game that finished 18th nationally in rushing yards per game. Noah Canty's 72 receiving yards are the lone real subtraction, and with Tyler Glover, Aidan Buggey and Nate Chiarizio also back, the group's passing-game usage should track close to 2025 rather than change shape. The bigger swing factor is the offense around them: Duquesne's passing attack ranked just 95th nationally, so any growth in the tight end room's receiving numbers would mark a real shift rather than a continuation.

Duquesne ran the ball for 190 yards per game and averaged 5.93 yards per play behind a line that is losing seven bodies, including Tommy Brandt, Anthony Celletti, Michael Fallah, Aaron Gunn and Cameron McLaurin. Kahini Austin, Brady Boyle, Matt Brooks, Cole Canty and Abdallah Daud are the names back up front, but with no statistical trail on any of them it is impossible to know how much of that production walks out the door with the departed group. Jerry Schmitt's offense leaned heavily on the ground game and an efficient third-down number (37.3%) that lagged behind its explosiveness, so this rebuilt group has to protect that run identity even if the passing game (95th in yards per game) stays secondary.

Duquesne's line held up well in 2025, ranking 16th in yards allowed per game and 35th in yards per play allowed, but nine defensive linemen from that group are gone, including Ish Findlayter, Jack Dunkley and A.J. Ackerman. Jerry Schmitt has to replace nearly the entire rotation up front without diminishing a run defense that held opponents to 134 yards per game. Whether that production holds depends on how quickly whoever fills those snaps can keep opposing plays off schedule, a category where Duquesne ranked 30th a year ago.

Duquesne's defense finished 16th nationally in yards allowed per game a year ago, but that number now has to hold up without the linebacker corps that helped build it. Quan Rhodes-McKee and Avery Morris are both gone from a room that lost seven linebackers in all, and the drop-off in tackle production up front is real even if the scheme around it stayed sound. The bigger swing factor is what opposing offenses did against that front, keeping only 39.1% of plays on schedule, a number tougher to sustain when so much experience at the second level walked out the door. Jerry Schmitt has to find answers there before the run defense numbers slip from respectable to a problem.

A secondary that held opponents to 194 passing yards a game and helped Duquesne rank 16th in total yards allowed now loses its production almost entirely, with Antonio Epps, TJ Jones, DJ Cerisier, Henry Pickens and Jaelen Carson among seven defensive backs gone. Jerry Schmitt has to rebuild the back end around an experienced secondary rather than wholesale inexperience, but replacing that many bodies at once is the real test given how much of the pass defense's identity walks out the door. The rush defense (32nd) and yards-per-play number (35th) suggest a front that can still cover for growing pains on the back end, which may be exactly what this group needs early in 2026.

Michael Berarducci's 42.5-yard average walks out the door, leaving Andrew Graham and Michael Hartshorn to split the punting job on a combined eight career kicks. Matt Marcinko, who hit just 2 of 3 field goals last fall, becomes the incumbent placekicker after Matt Clark's 6-of-8 mark and 35 points departed with him, and Mike Osekowski gives Jerry Schmitt a second scholarship leg to lean on. The specialists carry little track record, so Duquesne's kicking game in 2026 rests on Marcinko settling into consistent makes rather than any proven long-range threat.

Carson Camp

Tyler Riddell's 2011 yards and 25 touchdowns walk out the door, and Southeastern Louisiana transfer Carson Camp is projected to replace all of it after throwing for 1794 yards and 14 scores in his last stop. Duquesne still has Ness Davis, Shawn Solomon Jr. and Dazhaun Hopkins churning out the run game, but a 7-5 season built on Riddell's arm now rides on whether Camp can hit the same clip against NEC defenses.

Jerry Schmitt's Home-Only Value

Duquesne is a completely different bet depending on the zip code. At home, backing Jerry Schmitt's club has been near-automatic: 4-1 against the spread, a perfect 3-0 as a home favorite, part of a 5-1 straight-up mark that matches the eye test on this roster. That cover rate evaporates the moment Duquesne travels, going 1-5 against the spread on the road and 0-2 as a road underdog, which makes the home slate the only place bettors should lean into this 7-5 team in 2026.