From the Other Side: Can Struggling Great Danes Slow Villanova Down?

Villanova Football will attempt to push their winning streak to five games when they host UAlbany on Saturday, Oct. 25, and they’ll have the benefit of playing at home — where they have a 19-game winning streak — against a team with one of the worst records in the CAA.

While Albany (1-6 0-3 CAA) was able to play No. 1 quarterback Jack Shields, who missed the previous two games to injury, they still suffered plenty of miscues against Rhode Island, the top team in the CAA, last week. Per Great Danes head coach Jared Ambrose, Albany wasn’t able to apply enough pressure on Rhode Island quarterback Devin Farrell, the first step in a chain reaction that turned into a 58-17 home loss. Facing No. 11 Villanova’s talented offensive line, Albany’s struggles up front could turn into a glaring issue.

On the other side of the ball, Ambrose described the challenge Shields will face against Villanova’s patented 3-3-5 defense, calling it one of the oddest looks any team in the conference provides.

In describing how he might hope to crack the Wildcats’ defense during his weekly media availability session, Ambrose said he will try to “manipulate a couple formations to get good angles in your run games because they’re going to have six guys committed to the box at all times regardless of the set.” 

Ambrose continued.

“They build edges really well in their defense, so it’s tough to break contain on it. Pass game wise, you’ve got to take advantage of any bit of space you can get,” Ambrose said. “With the three down front, there’s automatically more people in coverage on the back end, so the space is limited.”

Wildcats Hitting Their Stride

Villanova head coach Mark Ferrante, meanwhile, said he challenged his team to get out to a fast start in their 56-14 blowout win over Hampton, a game that saw the Wildcats score seven first half touchdowns. Six of those scores came from graduate transfer quarterback Pat McQuaide, who threw five touchdowns to five different receivers and ran another in himself. 

Ferrante complemented the veteran signal caller’s football mind, describing him as like an extra coach on the field.  

“[McQuaide] knows how to distribute the ball, he gets the ball out quickly; he does a good job with seeing what’s out there pre-snap and then post-snap,” Ferrante said. “He has very few turnovers — knock on wood — he protects the football, and does a good job taking what’s there.”

Ferrante also spoke to another aspect of Villanova’s winning streak, their defensive improvement since early season blowout losses to Penn State and Monmouth. He said that some of the Wildcats’ shaky play stemmed from a lack of live tackling in the offseason — the smaller FCS roster cap means he has to protect his players until the games start to matter; Ferrante also credited improvements from his young secondary, which lost a handful of multi-year starters in the offseason.

“We have not done a lot of live 11-on-11 tackling even in the offseason, so it shows up early in the fall, where you’re not hitting all the technical things as well as you can or as well as you should be,” Ferrante said. “I’ve seen dramatic improvement in our young secondary. They’re starting to get used to playing with each other, and the communication is getting better. The effort was always there.”