Villanova Football Back to Earning Top 25 Votes

After starting the season 2-4, Villanova Football is starting to warm their way back toward the top 25, receiving the 29th-most votes of any team to appear on a ballot in the FCS Stats Perform poll published on Monday, Nov. 9.

Dayton, the first team out, earned 62 points, while Villanova got 36. The AFCA Coaches Poll gave them a stricter assessment, listing the Wildcats at No. 36 in votes received.

Winners of four in a row and tied for second in the Patriot League, the Wildcats (6-4, 5-2 Patriot League) landed outside the top 35 last week, but a dominant 30-0 win over Richmond — and, perhaps, their track record of success in recent seasons — helped Villanova sneak back into consideration after their early swoon.

An outright Patriot League title is likely still their best shot of making it back to the FCS playoffs for a fourth consecutive year: with 13 of 24 spots dedicated to conference champions, the Wildcats would need to sweat out the selection show if they aren’t able to make up their one-game deficit to Lehigh over the final two weeks of the regular season. Even so, with quarterback Pat McQuaide’s eligibility lawsuit with the Patriot League ongoing, there’s a non-negligible chance that Villanova won’t be able to win a league title: the league previously said that they’d consider any conference game in which McQuaide played a forfeit.