There are two numbers that best illustrate why Duquesne has outgrown the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference: 37 consecutive victories against league opponents and seven consecutive MAAC championships.

Duquesne has the longest current conference win streak in Division I-AA that dates to a 62-50 defeat at Iona in 1999.

The Dukes are 70-7 against MAAC teams since joining the league in 1994.

		LAST WEEK REVISITED Highlights from performances by individuals and teams in district colleges last week: California's 38-23 victory ended a 20-game losing streak against IUP and gave the Vulcans (8-2) a share of their first Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference West Division title since 1984. Carnegie Mellon clinched its 31st consecutive non-losing season with a 30-15 victory against Bethany. T.J. Parker set a Bethany season record with his ninth touchdown catch. Edinboro's Chris Avery established a school career record with 20 interceptions, eclipsing Steve Russell's 19 set in 1991-94. The Duquesne University men's soccer team (13-4), which split two games over the weekend to clinch a share of the regular-season Atlantic 10 Conference championship, dropped eight spots to No. 24 in the NSCAA/adidas Top 25. Thiel (9-0), which has won nine games in a season for the first time and already clinched its first Presidents' Athletic Conference title since 1972, is 18th for its highest ranking in the American Football Coaches Association NCAA Division III poll. Roger Kingdom, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and former record holder in the 110-meter hurdles, will be inducted into the National Track & Field Hall of Fame Dec. 1. He is the cross country and track and field coach at California University and was an All-American at the University of Pittsburgh.

The MAAC, which has dwindled to five teams from a high of nine over the years, no longer challenges the Dukes, who are idle this week and finish the season with a non-league game at St. Francis, Pa., Nov. 19.

The teams in the down-sized MAAC are Duquesne, Iona, La Salle, Marist and Saint Peter's. In recent years, a number of schools have dropped football, and Georgetown left the MAAC to join the Patriot League.

To compensate for a weak MAAC, Duquesne plays the most demanding non-league schedule in Division I-AA mid-major with games against teams from the Ivy League, Patriot League and Northeast Conference. The Dukes 6-3 record this season includes victories against Fordham (Patriot League) and Robert Morris (Northeast) and the losses came against Penn (Ivy), Columbia (Ivy) and Georgetown (Patriot).

The Dukes were out of their league in only one game, a 41-14 defeat at Penn, a perennial Ivy League power.

Duquesne's future schedules include games against Ivy members Brown and Columbia in 2007. Robert Morris is a yearly staple and games are being arranged with Bucknell and Georgetown, according to new athletic director Greg Amodio.

"We haven't taken a hard look at the future of Duquesne football," said Amodio, who was hired two months ago. "I'm going to sit down with the school's administrators and the coaches and evaluate where we are and where we want to go with the program.

"It's premature to make an assessment."

Duquesne's options for the future of the football program are limited unless it plans to make a substantial financial increase to upgrade its facilities, increase the football staff, offer limited scholarships and fulfill the requirements of Title IX.

The most logical step "up" for Duquesne would be the Patriot League, whose schools have much larger athletic budgets than the Dukes with scholarship money available for athletes. Duquesne could join the Patriot League for football while keeping the remainder of its teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

"We might want to take a long-range look at the Patriot League," Amodio said.

"That would take an additional commitment on the part of Duquesne. Football has a long and storied history at Duquesne and we want to keep it as part of the fiber of the student community and our fan base."

As a member of Division I-AA mid-major, Duquesne doesn't offer athletic scholarships and can provide financial aid based on need. The conferences in Division I-AA mid-major that are comparable to the MAAC are the Northeast Conference and Pioneer League.

"We want to continue to be proactive in football by keeping an eye on the landscape," Amodio said. "I'm always looking to put us in the best position to be successful. This has been my first opportunity to have a hands-on look at Division I-AA and it definitely has a place at Duquesne. I think 1-AA fits a niche and is a slice of Americana. It's kind of the way college football should be.

"We want to get to the point where Saturdays at Duquesne become a big happening with football."

Duquesne's typical crowd is in the neighborhood of 3,500 at Rooney Field, which has permanent wooden bleachers on one side and a bleacher and limited concrete seating on the other. The largest crowd in the 13-year history of the stadium is 5,210 for a night game against Bucknell on Sept. 5, 1998.

"Duquesne's had a long history of success," Amodio said, "that we want to continue."