Mark Ferrante got behind the microphone Saturday afternoon and, as football coaches are wont to do, talked about turnovers.
There was precious little else to discuss in Villanova’s 14-7 win over Lehigh in the second round of the Division I football tournament.
Neither team scored in the first half. Both teams missed field goals in the fourth quarter. Villanova won a game in which it failed to collect 250 yards of total offense.
The difference, to Ferrante, was simple. Lehigh twice fumbled the ball away.
Villanova, as it has done better than any team in the nation this season, held onto it. And so a 1-yard rushing touchdown by Ja’briel Mace in the third quarter and a 28-yard scoring hookup between Pat McQuaide and Braden Reed with 2:56 left in regulation allowed the Wildcats to move on.
“Those two mistakes — I’d like to say we forced those two mistakes — but those two mistakes made by Lehigh with the turnovers ended up being the difference in the game,” Ferrante said.
Given their next opponent, turnovers will again loom large.
The win over Lehigh, the fifth seed in the tournament, was Villanova’s first over a top-five team since beating James Madison in 2021. It’ll have to pull off a second against No. 4 Tarleton State (12-1).
It’s not just a second straight week in which Villanova, as the 12th seed in the FCS playoffs, will look to upend a top 5 team when it visits Texas Saturday (noon, ESPN+). It’ll be a meeting of the team that has committed the fewest turnovers in the nation — Villanova, at five in 13 games — and a team that has created an impossible sounding 38 turnovers in 13 games.
Care of the ball has been paramount for Villanova in its third straight season of 10 or more wins.
It is tied with four teams (including Tarleton State) for the third-fewest fumbles lost in FCS at two. The three interceptions thrown is tied for the fewest in the nation. Two of those picks have come from starter Pat McQuaide, who has completed 62 percent of his passes for 2,744 yards and 23 touchdowns.
“Pat’s just a great ball player,” Ferrante said. “He’s a great guy on the field. He’s like having a coach out there. He is the son of a coach. … So Pat’s been around it his whole life. He’s obviously played a lot of football at various places, and I’m just glad he’s playing for us right now, because he does a good job taking care of the football. Didn’t turn the ball over again today, and that’s critical.”
Tarleton State, however, has made many an offense part ways with the football.
It leads FCS with 15 fumbles recovered and 23 interceptions, three returned for touchdowns. Thirteen different players have a pick, led by Kasyus Kurns’ six. Angelo Anderson leads the Texans with five forced fumbles and 9.5 sacks.
Turnovers loomed large last week against Lehigh.
Leading 7-0, Lehigh reached the Villanova 35 when Archbishop Carroll grad Richie Kimmel stripped Luke Yoder, with ‘Nova’s Josh Oluremi recovering. Consecutive long completions from McQuaide to Reed set up Mace’s short TD to tie the game at 7.
In the fourth, Lehigh reached the Villanova 14 with less than two minutes left when Delco Christian grad Obinna Nwobodo punched the ball out from Hayden Johnson. Linebacker Shane Hartzell recovered with 1:49 left to play, and one first down was all the Wildcats needed to run out the clock.
“Turnovers are something that can really swing momentum,” Hartzell said. “So when Richie punched that ball out and we recovered, the momentum is now in our favor.”
Tarleton State’s season isn’t just about the defense, though. The Texans lead the nation in scoring offense at 44.1 points per game. They’re fourth in the nation in total offense at 472.3 yards per game.
Quarterback Victor Gabalis has thrown for 2,687 yards and 28 touchdowns, while the Texans average 204.5 rushing yards per game. Tarleton State is coached by Todd Whitten, who was drafted by the Phillies in the 17th round of the 1983 MLB draft as an outfielder out of Dallas’ Kimball High School but pursued a career as a quarterback at Stephen F. Austin.
Villanova (11-2) has won an FCS playoff game for the fourth straight year. The Wildcats fell in the quarterfinals in 2021 and 2023, both two-score decisions against South Dakota State. Villanova dropped a 13-6 decision in the second round last year in Texas at Incarnate World.
Villanova is 4-8 all-time in Texas. It last won a playoff game there in 2010 against Stephen F. Austin.
The Wildcats are in the midst of a 10-game winning streak, just the fifth in school history and the second (1997) to occur within a single season. Its defense is a big reason why, allowing 14.3 points per game in that streak, including consecutive 7-point outings against Lehigh and Harvard, a 52-7 first-round win.
Tarleton State’s loss came Nov. 1 against Abilene Christian. Its wins include a 30-27 overtime decision at Army. Rising from Division II in 2020, this is the Texans’ second year of eligibility for the FCS playoffs. They went 10-4 last year and fell to No. 4 South Dakota in the second round of the FCS tournament.
Villanova’s draw has brought it to unique places, as is the changing nature of FCS. Harvard was playing its first FCS playoff game, in the Ivy League’s first year of participation. Lehigh hosted its first home playoff game since 2004. Saturday will be the fourth FCS playoff game for Tarleton State.
The Wildcats expressed a sense of being disrespected with all the hype around Harvard. They were underdogs on paper against Lehigh, a team Villanova will join in the Patriot League next season.
Ferrante has seen his team cultivate a stronger, more resilient identity over the last few months.
After the Harvard game, he talked about plays in one phase of the game energizing the team in other areas. The resolve held against Lehigh, with patience in a “bittersweet” scoreless locker room at halftime that the offense would get in gear to back the defense’s performance.
That cohesiveness is what the Wildcats will bring to Texas.
“You can see how if something happens good on special teams or on defense or on offense, it sparks the other two areas,” Ferrante said. “And early in the season, we kind of didn’t have that. We were kind of almost playing independently of each other, trying to figure out who we were in all three phases. Now the three phases are playing together, and that’s exciting to see.”
