RICHMOND, Va.—The postseason major award winners and CAA Football All-Conference Teams were announced by the league office on Tuesday afternoon and Villanova had 10 players garner All-CAA accolades for their play during the regular season.  It is the most all-conference honors for the Wildcats since 2014 and the team also added another major award winner in senior safety Chucky Smith (Newbury Park, Calif.), who was chosen as the Chuck Boone Leadership and Excellence Award recipient. 
 
Each of the 10 players named to the all-conference teams earned the honor for the first time in their careers.  Villanova had three players on the CAA Football First Team, including junior offensive lineman Paul Grattan (Pittsburgh, Pa.), junior linebacker Forrest Rhyne (Waynesboro, Pa.) and sophomore punter Nathan Fondacaro (Sewell, N.J.).  Four offensive players and three defensive players were named to the CAA Football Third Team.  The offensive honorees were junior quarterback Daniel Smith (Leesburg, Va.), junior running back Justin Covington (Bronx, N.Y.), junior wide receiver Changa Hodge (East Stroudsburg, Pa.) and junior offensive lineman Colin Gamroth (Mercer Island, Wash.).  On defense the all-conference group included junior defensive lineman Malik Fisher (New York, N.Y.), senior linebacker Drew Wiley (Pennington, N.J.) and junior defensive back Jaquan Amos (Philadelphia, Pa.).
 
 
The CAA Football all-conference awards are voted on by the league's head coaches, while the athletic director's of the 12 schools vote on the Chuck Boone Leadership and Excellence Award winner.  Villanova has won 17 major conference postseason awards, including at least one in five of the last six seasons.  Smith joins Jake Prus (2015) in winning the Chuck Boone award, which is now in its eighth year being presented. 
 
Smith was selected as the recipient of the Chuck Boone Leadership and Excellence Award for embodying the highest standards of leadership, integrity, teamwork and sportsmanship in academics and athletics.  The fifth-year safety has played in all 12 games for the Wildcats this season and recorded 45 tackles, including 3.5 tackles for loss.  A former walk-on to the team who earned a scholarship, Smith was named Villanova's 2018 Special Teams Player of the Year.  His career totals in 40 games played are 86 tackles, four tackles for loss, one sack, two fumble recoveries and two pass breakups. 
 
Off the field Smith has served the team, campus and community in a number of ways.  He will graduate in December with a degree in Biology (pre-medicine track) and a double minor in Economics and Naval Science.  Smith has already been selected to attend Navy Flight School in Pensacola, Fla. after his graduation.  He is a platoon leader with the Naval ROTC program at Villanova and received the Jake Nevin Award for character, integrity and leadership.  He serves as chair or RUIBAL, a volunteer program for tutoring underprivileged inner-city children.  Smith is also a tutor in the campus Writing Center and is a leader of the Athletes in Action bible study for varsity athletes as well as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for general students.
 
Rhyne is another tri-captain for the Wildcats this season and has had a breakout campaign in his first year as a starter at linebacker.  He leads the team and ranks fifth in the CAA with 105 tackles (50 solo, 55 assisted) on the season, including a team-high 6.5 sacks.  Rhyne is second on the squad with 13.5 tackles for loss and has recorded six double-digit tackle games on the year.  He had a career-high 15 total stops in a win at William & Mary on October 5 and was named the CAA Co-Defensive Player of the Week for that performance.  He is the team's first player to top 100 tackles since Ed Shockley in 2017.    
 
Fondacaro has been the best punter in the CAA this season and leads the league with an average of 44.5 yards per punt.  He has recorded 40 punts on the year, including eight of 50 yards or longer and 13 which were downed inside the opponent's 20-yard line.  His efforts on the season include a career-long 75-yard punt at Bucknell on September 14.  His average of 44.5 yards per punt would rank sixth in the FCS if Fondacaro had enough attempts to qualify (the minimum is 3.6 attempts per team game to appear in the national stats).  Fondacaro has also kicked off 73 times for an average of 58.5 yards.
 
Grattan and Gamroth have been mainstays on a Villanova offensive line which has been one of the Wildcats biggest team strengths.  The line has given up just 12 quarterback sacks for a total loss of 84 yards all season, an average of one sack allowed per game.  That ranks Villanova first in the CAA and seventh nationally in fewest sacks allowed.  Villanova went three straight games earlier this year against Towson, Maine and William & Mary in which it did not allow a single sack.  It was the first time that had happened since at least 2001 based on available data following the three-game stretch.  The Wildcats offense has put up at least 20 points in all 12 games on the year, a feat not accomplished by Villanova since 1997.  The play of the offensive line has enabled the Wildcats to average 192.1 rushing yards per game and top the 200-yard mark seven times in 12 contests. 
 
Smith is having a sensational 2019 campaign in his first year at Villanova.  The transfer from Campbell has thrown for 2,991 yards and 31 touchdowns while also running for 367 yards and a team-high 11 rushing touchdowns.  Smith also has been credited with a 68-yard touchdown reception.  He needs just nine more passing yards to record the seventh 3,000-yard passing season in school history, while his 3,358 yards of total offense are the fifth-most in a single season in school history.  Smith ranks second in the nation with the 258 points he is responsible for.  He is also sixth in passing touchdowns (31), 14^th in passing efficiency (150.4), 17^th in passing yards and 19^th in both total offense per game (279.8) and yards per completion (13.8). 
 
Hodge is having a career year as the Wildcats leading wideout.  He has made 59 catches for 1,020 yards and 12 touchdowns on the year, and is the first Villanova player to break 1,000 receiving yards in a single season since Murle Sango in 1999.  This is only the sixth 1,000-yard campaign in school history.  Hodge has topped 100 yards in a game four times and is coming off a monster game against Delaware in the regular season finale.  He had eight receptions for 236 yards and four scores in the win, with the total yards ranking as the second-highest single game total in the Villanova record book.  Hodge was the Wildcats first receiver to catch at least four touchdown passes in a game since 1971, and the first since 1996 to surpass 200 receiving yards.  He also became the 17^th player in program history to top 1,500 career receiving yards during the Delaware game.
 
Covington was enjoying a dominant season as Villanova's top running back when we sustained a season-ending injury in the first half of the William & Mary game on October 5.  At the time of the injury, Covington was leading the FCS in rushing with 727 yards.  He had topped the 100-yard mark in five straight games to open the year while averaging 8.1 yards per carry and 121.2 yards per game.  Covington's performance was a key part of the Wildcats racing out of the gates with a 6-0 record, as Villanova surged to a top-five national ranking after being unranked in both polls to open the year.  Despite having missed the past 6.5 games, Covington still ranks fifth in the CAA with his 727 rushing yards. 
 
Fisher has been a force at defensive end where he has made 27 total tackles (14 solo, 13 assisted) for the year, including six sacks.  He began the year by recording a sack in four straight games and having at least half a sack in six of the first seven contests.  Fisher tallied five total stops to go along with 1.5 sacks and two quarterback hurries in a 52-45 win over Towson which helped put the Wildcats on the national radar.  In his third year as a starter on the defensive line, Fisher has played in 34 career games and has tallied 60 total tackles, 18.5 tackles for loss, 14.0 sacks, five pass breakups, five forced fumbles, three fumble recoveries and one blocked kick.
 
Wiley has been playing some of his best football of the season recently.  He has recorded at least five tackles in each of the last eight games he has played in and has been credited with at least a partial sack in six of his last seven contests.  For the season, Wiley has recorded 57 total tackles (36 solo, 21 assisted), a team-best 15.0 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, three forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, two interceptions and six pass breakups.  He had a career-high four tackles for loss against Stony Brook on October 26, followed up that performance with six total tackles at New Hampshire and then had 3.5 tackles for loss in a win over Richmond on November 9.  The latter performance earned him CAA Defensive Player of the Week honors.
 
Amos has continued to be a big playmaker for the Villanova defense while seeing time at both corner and safety.  He has played in 10 games on the year and his season totals include 43 tackles (33 solo, 10 assisted), 2.5 tackles for loss, six pass breakups, four interceptions and one fumble recovery.  Amos leads the Wildcats with his four picks on the year and has returned two interceptions for touchdowns.  He had a 27-yard pick-six in the season opener against Colgate and a 34-yard interception return for a score at Bucknell on the game's first play from scrimmage.  Amos has scored four career defensive touchdowns, the most of any Villanova player during the program's FCS era (since 1985). 
 
Villanova was picked to finish ninth in the CAA Football preseason coaches and media poll but instead raced out of the gates with a 6-0 record and a 3-0 start in league play.  The Wildcats are currently ranked No. 8 in the STATS FCS Top 25 and open postseason play when they travel to Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday afternoon for a first round game in the Division I Football Championship.