Duquesne University football coach Jerry Schmitt can see it on campus when the bulldozers and cement mixers are working at Rooney Field. When he watches his players lifting weights. When he reads his mail.

He can feel it, too.

"There are a lot of new things, a lot of changes," he said. "The program is going to another level, and everybody is excited about the challenges because they know where we're going."

In addition to playing on a renovated field this fall, Duquesne will be competing in a new league with players on athletic scholarship for the first time. The Dukes, who dominated the NCAA Division I-AA non-scholarship Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference the past 14 seasons, are headed to the Northeast Conference that includes Robert Morris and Saint Francis, Pa., among its nine members. The NEC champion will earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs starting in 2010.

"The players are making a greater commitment in the weight room knowing we have to step things up," Schmitt said. "The university has made a major commitment and dedication to the program."

Duquesne is in the midst of a $4 million renovation project to upgrade its football facilities. It started at Rooney Field with the installation of permanent stands on the press box side of the field, concession stands, rest rooms and new artificial turf.

There also will be four rows of concrete seats without backs added along Academic Walk. The seating capacity will be approximately 3,000.

At the end of the 2008 season, work will begin on redesigning the offices and locker rooms in the field house.

"The future of our program is positive and aggressive," athletic director Greg Amodio said. "We have a lot of things working for us that we didn't have in the past."

The move to the NEC is a competitive step up for Duquesne, which won or shared 11 MAAC championships. The Dukes were 3-1 last season against NEC teams and are 12-6 overall against current NEC members.

"The quality of players we're getting is way different than it was in the past," Schmitt said. "We feel we can go into the NEC and compete."

Duquesne, which returns the nucleus from a 6-4 team that shared the MAAC title last season, will be strengthened by the incoming recruits who received the equivalent of 18 full athletic scholarships.

The Dukes will add two equivalent scholarships each year for the next several years and then will review the status of the program. NEC teams have a cap of 30 scholarships.

Youngstown State, like most of the I-AA schools that participate in the playoffs, offers about 60 scholarships.

"We're very pleased where we are now," Amodio said. "We've gone from an unstable conference to a very stable one and we hope the caliber of football will help bring new fans to the table. We're taking a renewed look at football and how we can market it to create a much bigger atmosphere around a game."

The redirection of football at Duquesne was determined a couple of years ago when Amodio and the administration decided to explore joining a new conference. The options were either to remain non-scholarship and become a member of the Pioneer Football League or add scholarships and become a member of the NEC. The Pioneer League was geographically undesirable because it has teams spread throughout the country

"We laid out a plan converting the program from non-scholarship to a scholarship model," Amodio said. "This is a tremendous leap for us."

It's one that Schmitt could only hope to see when he became head coach three years ago.

"These guys [Amodio and university president Charles Dougherty] made it a reality," he said. "It's exceeded what we could have imagined."