Mark Ferrante made Villanova into a regular playoff contender. Can it advance past the second round?
Villanova has made the FCS playoffs in five of the last six seasons, but fell short in the second round in the past three.
Mark Ferrante wore his usual visor with a smile, but his plastic toothpick, which normally sticks out of the side of his mouth at practices, was missing.
It was Wednesday morning, and the Villanova coach walked off the field at Villanova Stadium after wrapping practice in preparation for his team’s game against Lehigh in the second round of the FCS playoffs.
Despite the team’s inexperience after losing more than a dozen starters to graduation, Villanova demolished Harvard, 52-7, last weekend and has won nine straight. Ferrante said postgame that his players might lack experience, but they never lacked confidence.
Ferrante, in his ninth year at the helm, and the program is making its fifth FCS playoff appearance in the last six seasons and 17th all-time. Ferrante has been around the team since 1987 and watched former head coach Andy Talley build the program from the ground up. That paid off in 2009, when Villanova won its lone FCS championship.
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In the last three seasons, Villanova has won its first FCS playoff game and then fallen short in the second round. Last season, Villanova traveled to San Antonio, Texas, to face sixth-seeded Incarnate Word in the second round. The Wildcats held Incarnate Word, which last season averaged 33.6 points per game, to 13, but still lost, 13-6.
Now, Villanova is back in the second round, and Ferrante is tasked with guiding his team over that hurdle on Saturday noon (ESPN+) in Bethlehem, Pa.
Villanova’s FBS game — against Penn State this season — and tough Coastal Athletic Association matchups helped prepare the team to play into December.
“Sometimes it comes down to the health of the team,” Ferrante said. “If you look at last year against Incarnate Word, we’re playing a ton of freshmen [defensive backs] in that game by the time we got to that point of the season. So right now, we’re better than we were a year ago when it comes to the health of the team. I’m not looking to make excuses, because you have to go 1-0 each week. And this idea is to survive and advance.”
Villanova has lost starters intermittently because of injuries this year. Notably, standout running back David Avit has missed the last three games with a knee injury. Ja’briel Mace and Isaiah Ragland stepped up with no issue, both rushing for career highs during that stretch. Mace even broke the program’s 24-year-old single-game rushing record.
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On defense, the team started the season without graduate linebacker Richie Kimmel and lost junior linebacker JR Strauss after the Penn State game.
During Villanova’s 2009 championship season, meanwhile, it lost one notable starter to an injury.
While injuries are uncontrollable, execution is not, Ferrante said.
“The bottom line is it has to come down to execution,” Ferrante said. “You have to go out and perform at a high level, regardless of who you’re playing, regardless of the weather conditions, regardless of the health of your team.”
Graduate linebacker Shane Hartzell has played in all of Villanova’s playoff games these past three seasons.
“The experience of Shane, I’m sure [the vets] talk to guys behind the scenes,” Ferrante said. “I think we have a good locker room right now. So I think there’s a lot of that going on that we really don’t even see as coaches, but it’s their practice habits that help as well. You have guys that just go out there and practice hard all the time, and that filters down into the young guys.
“So now you see some of our younger guys are having fairly good success. They see how practice is supposed to be, and then they follow suit, and then they end up becoming pretty good players.”
It has become a standard for Villanova to retain players for four years or more. Ten of Villanova’s starters last season were five-plus-year players.
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“We just try to set a standard of being good students, good athletes, and good people,” Ferrante said. “Just work hard, be a good person, make good decisions, and good things will happen.
“That’s our approach when it comes to the classroom. That’s our approach when it comes to practice and playing. If you have a good locker room and you have a team that could lead themselves a little bit, there’s not a lot of drama.”
As college football coaches ride a merry-go-round of programs, Ferrante has not moved an inch from the Main Line, and that looks to be the case well into the future.
“If you love what you do, you love where you do it, and you love the people you do it with, that’s a win,” Ferrante said. “And that’s what this place has been for me.”