RICHMOND, Va. - During the sixth weekly CAA Football teleconference of the season on Monday, Villanova head coach Andy Talley gave his thoughts on the Wildcats' conference road win at Elon and how the team is preparing to play Rhode Island at home this weekend. Below is a transcript of Talley's comments.

Villanova Head Coach Andy Talley

On last week's win over Elon: I was pleased that we were able to travel to Elon and play well. We expected some hot weather, and we did get hot weather. We handled the weather and the trip pretty well. I think we caught Elon at the best time, really. They were coming off a big win against William & Mary the week before. It's hard to win back-to-back in our league, especially since they had a great win down at William & Mary, which is a tough place to play. We were very skeptical and very concerned about the game, obviously. We got off to a very quick start and were able to score on the first drive of the game, the second drive of the game and the third drive of the game. We were on the minus 40 on the fourth drive of the game, and I went for it on fourth down. I just felt like our defense was playing well enough at that time, that if we didn't get the first down that we could do a pretty good job. We went for it, and we were able to get our fourth touchdown. We were playing really good defense and had a pretty good day defensively. When you put it all together, I think we had 557 yards of total offense. Defensively, we held them in tact pretty well. Elon had a rough start coming off of the William & Mary game, and I think it was a difficult task for them to play two pretty good teams this early in the season. So, I was pretty pleased with the result.

On the play of Zach Bednarczyk: He's a guy that I think as he goes, we will go. That's usually what happens in this league when you have a quarterback that can play. He was off against Lafayette. He was sick, actually. I think he came back guns blazing for the Elon game and was really accurate, on target. We held him off on running the football against Lafayette. When you hold him back running the football, that hurts what he can do, because our second quarterback had a concussion and I didn't really have a second quarterback ready to go against Lafayette. So we didn't let him run. Saturday, we let him run the ball a little bit, and that opens our offense up when he's able to run and throw. So, that was why I think we had a pretty good day offensively.

On how Zach Bednarczyk has progressed as a quarterback: I think last year he was pressed into service in the third game of the year against Delaware when John Robertson went out with the knee. Just a battle under fire. He really had to go in and get it down. He played some really terrific games and then he had a couple of rough games. We almost snuck by with him last year. He had very good, valuable experience. He showed signs that he could be the kind of quarterback that he is right now. What we're really looking for him to do is play consistently well throughout the rest of the season and put together another really good game offensively back-to-back. I think in our league when the quarterback plays well every week, you really have a chance.

On this week's game against Rhode Island: Rhode Island is a team that finally got on the winning track against Brown. They've played a very difficult schedule. Two of the three teams they played, Albany and Harvard, are undefeated. So they've had a very difficult schedule, as opposed to us. Our schedule is a little light early in the season. We anticipate Coach Fleming bringing that group down here and playing hard. Jim is a guy that coached for me and was my defensive coordinator. I know him very well. He's a terrific guy, a terrific coach, and he's right around the corner from getting this Rhode Island team where they need to be in our league. We know we're going to have a rough game.

On the running back situation: We held Javon out last week, because we felt that Matt Gudzak was ready to go. Matt certainly responded and had a really good game. If Javon is a little better tomorrow, we'll work him into the mix, because now we have three very talented tailbacks. Actually, it's going to be tough to get all three reps. Aaron Forbes is a tremendous young running back. We love him. Gudzak has real good legs underneath him right now, because he didn't have a preseason. He was really sharp Saturday. I think it will be interesting to see how we can use all three. We'll wait and see how well Javon does this week in practice. I think he'll be feeling better. We'll probably have a problem trying to get all three reps.

On the play of the defense: I think we matched up pretty well with Elon. I think the defense right now is playing very well. They are a very talented group. We're able to play a lot of guys on defense, which helps, without a lot of drop off. I think it's really important to be able to scheme up some of the younger guys that have helped us. You know, we're going to start getting some injury, and you've got to have people that can back up a little bit. Our secondary has played really, really well. I like what our linebackers are doing right now. Austin Calitro, I think, is one of the better linebackers in our league. Tanoh Kpassagnon is having a great year. I really like what he's doing. It's kind of a quiet leadership group on defense. Two of the captains, both Tanoh and Austin Calitro are over there. They've got an iron grip on that defense. They're pretty stingy right now. In this league, you've got to try to have a good balance of offense and defense, and I think we're pushing toward that right now, where we're starting to be able to come up with a team that can score points and a defense that can hold teams to under 18 points and that's critical. So, we'll see how we go. We're starting to get into some high powered teams now, and we'll see if we can maintain the skill set that we've shown up to this point.

On the leadership of this year's team: For the first time, we have 10 fifth-year seniors. We've never had that before. There's a quiet leadership on this team of guys that have been here for five years. Usually, you have two or three, because we end up playing a lot of freshmen early on special teams. This year, I think this team has the maturity to come from behind, to battle, to understand that you're going to be in a tough game going into the third and fourth quarter, and maintain your resiliency. That has helped us up to this point.