The Villanova Wildcats will open the spring portion of their football season on Saturday afternoon with a road game at the Stony Brook Seawolves. Kickoff at Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium is set for 12 p.m..

Saturday's game will air on FloFootball. Fans can watch the game across all screens by downloading the FloSports app on iOS, Roku or Apple TV 4. Pricing for CAA fans is available at flosports.tv/caa. On the radio side, all six Villanova Football games will be carried on WWDB-AM 860.

When Villanova kicks off the 2021 spring season on Saturday afternoon, it will have been 461 days since the Wildcats last played a football game due to the COVID pandemic.
The team's last game came in a 45-44 loss at Southeastern Louisiana in the first round of the NCAA playoffs on Nov. 30, 2019.

Villanova begins its 123rd season of varsity football with Saturday's game at Stony Brook. The Wildcats are 60-59-3 all-time in season openers, including a 26-25-2 mark on the road. This will be the 16th consecutive season that the Wildcats begin the year with a road game.  In the last season opener, the Wildcats tallied a 34-14 win at Colgate on Aug. 24, 2019. Wildcat head coach Mark Ferrante is 3-0 in season openers as the Villanova mentor with all three victories coming on the road. The three wins include 38-35 at Lehigh in 2017, 19-17 at Temple in 2018 and 34-14 at Colgate in 2019.

Saturday's game between Villanova and Stony Brook will be just the fifth all-time meeting between the two schools. The first meeting between the teams came in the first round of the 2012 playoffs when Stony Brook tallied a 20-10 home victory. The Seawolves were new members of CAA Football one year later and visited Villanova Stadium, where the Wildcats registered a 35-6 win. The teams then did not meet again until 2018 when the Seawolves won 29-27. In the last meeting between the schools on Oct. 26, 2019, Stony Brook rallied from a 35-20 fourth quarter deficit to win 36-35 on a 22-yard field goal as time expired. The Wildcats are 0-2 in their two visits to Stony Brook's LaValle Stadium.

Villanova enters play on Saturday ranked No. 5 in the latest STATS FCS Top 25. The Wildcats are one of five CAA teams in this week's national poll with the others including James Madison at No. 1, Albany at No. 13, New Hampshire at No. 14, and Delaware at No. 25. 

Quarterback Daniel Smith returns this season to lead the Villanova offense. As a junior in 2019, Smith was sensational completing 236-of-396 for 3,274 yards to go with 35 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, in addition to tallying 84 carries for 457 yards (5.4 avg.) and 12 touchdowns. This was the seventh 3,000 yard passing season in school history.  He also led all of FCS Football in the Points Responsible For statistical category with 288. For his efforts he was named to the 2019 CAA All-Conference third team.