Is Villanova’s football team championship-caliber? We’re about to find out.
The Wildcats have 10 wins and a No. 11 national seeding. But they'll face a sixth-ranked Incarnate Word team in San Antonio that's won nine straight.
How far can Villanova go in this year’s FCS playoffs?
The Wildcats were ousted in last year’s quarterfinals. This year, they’re preparing to face Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday (2 p.m., ESPN+) in the second round with a trip to the quarterfinals on the line.
Seeded No. 11, Villanova (10-3, 6-2 Colonial Athletic Association) will face the Southland Conference champion Cardinals (10-2, 7-0) for the first time.
Villanova’s clutch offense
Against Eastern Kentucky last week, Villanova erased a 17-9 halftime deficit by shutting down the Colonels offense alongside a third-quarter touchdown pass from Connor Watkins to James Welde and two Ethan Gettman field goals. The Wildcats had a knack for late-game heroics all season, having outscored opponents, 98-37, in the fourth quarter.
In his sixth year on Villanova’s, Watkins remains a source of steady leadership for a mostly young offense.
“I think I’ve played enough football now, I’ve played in multiple playoff games now, and we’ve been down by multiple scores before,” Watkins said after the Eastern Kentucky win. “So my biggest thing is just making sure that some of those guys [who] haven’t been in this [playoff] situation understand that it’s a four-quarter game. It’s a game of momentum, so I knew we were going to get it going at some point.”
Freshman running back David Avit, the CAA Offensive Rookie of the Year, leads the Wildcats with 68.2 rushing yards per game. He tallied a career-high 75 receiving yards against Eastern Kentucky.
Aerial attack
Riding a nine-game winning streak, Incarnate Word earned a bye in the first round of the FCS tournament.
Like Watkins, Cardinals quarterback Zach Calzada also is in his sixth year, and poses a huge problem for Villanova’s defense. Calzada, sixth in the FCS with 279.3 passing yards per game and leads all FCS schools with 33 passing touchdowns, joined Incarnate Word in 2023 after three years with SEC programs. He was a starter for Texas A&M as a sophomore and transferred to Auburn in 2022 but did not see the field because of a shoulder injury.
Penalty problems
Although Villanova was focused on cleaning up mistakes late in the season, penalties were a problem against Eastern Kentucky.
The Wildcats compiled 10 penalties for 104 yards and also lost the turnover battle, 3-1. But the Wildcats know a repeat performance in those areas might not work out so well in San Antonio.
“It was a sloppy game,” Villanova coach Mark Ferrante said at Monday’s CAA press conference. “We have to do a better job of ball security.”
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