RADNOR — Villanova head coach Mark Ferrante hasn’t looked at the predictions. Had he, it probably wouldn’t impact anything anyway.
Villanova has pulled off what, by the Football Championships Subdivision seeds, are two straight upsets, winning at Lehigh and Tarleton State. The Wildcats felt like a chic pick to be upended in the first round by Harvard.
But with the FCS tournament hitting the semifinals, the Wildcats are hosting. Their opponent, unseeded Illinois State, has survived being an unquestioned underdog three times.
It’s the exact kind of situation for which the aphorisms Ferrante builds his messaging around are designed.
“We try not to talk about it,” he said this week. “We try to just approach each week the same, regardless of where we are in the season and who we’re playing and what time of year it is, and all the other things that come along with this opportunity.”
And a massive opportunity it is. Two teams that few people thought would be here will play Saturday night for a trip to the NCAA final in Nashville when the Wildcats welcome the Redbirds to the Main Line (7:30 p.m., ESPN).
The winner gets the victor of the more traditional Mountain Sky battle between No. 2 Montana State and No. 3 Montana. The final is Jan. 5 at Vanderbilt’s FirstBank Stadium.
About the only thing making Villanova’s voyage seem less likely is Illinois State’s.
Villanova (12-2) is on an 11-game winning streak after starting 1-2. The Wildcats drew the 12th seed, hosting Harvard in the first round, then had to win at fifth-seeded Lehigh and No. 4 Tareton State to reach the FCS semifinals for the fourth time in program history and first since 2010.
Then there’s Illinois State (11-4).
The Redbirds very nearly fell out of the field with a 37-7 drubbing at home by Southern Illinois in the regular-season finale. One of the last four at-larges in, they went and routed Southeastern Louisiana; survived Tommy Rittenhouse throwing five interceptions to upset No. 1 North Dakota State, 29-28; then jumped all over No. 8 UC Davis last week in a 42-31 win that avenged their 2024 playoff ouster.
The voyage east will take the team from normal on a very abnormal postseason journey of more than 4,300 miles.
Less normal would be if Illinois State pulls off another upset. On just about every yardage and scoring metric, Villanova comes out on top.
Illinois State is 103rd in the nation in passing defense, 71st in total defense and 57th in scoring defense.
Villanova’s defense, meanwhile, has held the team that was ranked 11th in FCS in scoring offense (Harvard) to seven points, the 28th offense (Lehigh) to seven and the No. 1 offense in the nation (Tarleton State, at 44 ppg) to 21, despite spotting them the first 14 in the first half on a long touchdown reception and a short field from a blocked kick.
Illinois State does move the ball. It has more first downs than any team in the nation, and at 18 is fourth in the nation in interceptions. Tarleton State, at 24, led in that latter category.
However perplexing the granular qualities, the big picture is clear: Illinois State is 14-3 on the road since the start of the 2024 season. Two of the losses have come to FBS teams Iowa and Oklahoma.
This season, the Redbirds are 8-0 on the road against FCS opposition.
Their profile is similar to Villanova’s. Rittenhouse has competed 65.5 percent of his passes for 3,006 yards and 34 touchdowns, though he’s more error-prone than Villanova’s Pat McQuaide (60.3 percent, 2,924 yards, 24 TDs, 3 INTs) at 11 interceptions.
Villanova averages 180 rushing yards per game, Illinois State 170, led by Victor Dawson and his 1,096 yards. The Wildcats have a committee approach since the injury to David Avit. Ja’briel Mace has stepped up with 811 yards in the last eight games and is averaging 7.6 yards per carry for the season.
The Redbirds have the biggest individual difference-maker on the field in receiver Daniel Sobkowicz, who has 16 TDs this year and 38 for his career, including five in the postseason. He has 992 receiving yards this season.
Villanova may have more playoff seasoning. Saturday will be its eighth playoff game in three seasons. It won playoff games in 2021, 2023 and 2024, but it had lost each of its last four quarterfinals before last week’s win.
Veterans on the team hope those travails have paid off in some ways.
“Don’t take any opportunity that you have for granted,” said graduate student defensive lineman and Delco Christian grad Obinna Nwobodo. “Go out there and play like it’s your last play for each other. Leave it all out there on the field.”
Villanova is navigating the end of the semester this week, which means practicing during finals and the emptying out of campus for the holidays. That’s in some ways the stated preseason goal, as it was to be practicing through Thanksgiving.
“It’s definitely a blessing,” Nwobodo said. “I’d much rather be wrestling with finals while still playing football than just focusing on finals alone. So it’s awesome.”
Beyond what the seeds and hosting privileges say, Ferrante hasn’t sought any outside noise on this game. He’s not approaching it as though his team is a favorite or an underdog or anything other than a team trying to continue its arc of improvement, however much his guys have come to embrace an “undercat” mentality.
Weather and exams fit into that category. So does the historical weight of vying to join the program’s best ever squads. It’s another game for his group to get better and do what it’s been doing to get here.
“Our approach is our approach,” he said. “We’re trying to go 1-and-0 this week. We don’t talk about the history right now. We do talk a lot about people that played here before and some of the history, and we have some of those things in our office area … So they know the history of the program. But right now, we’re locked in.
“We’re not talking about what we’ve accomplished, because right now, we’re looking to go 1-0 this week.”
