RICHMOND, Va.—The defending CAA Football champion Villanova Wildcats will open the 2022 season with a home game against Lehigh on Friday, September 2 to kick off an 11-game regular season slate. The schedule for the 2022 season was released by the conference office on Tuesday afternoon with all 13 teams that make up the CAA Football conference playing 11 games over a 12-week period.
 
Villanova will open the season with three straight non-conference games before playing turning its attention to the eight-game CAA schedule the rest of the day. The season is nearly evenly split by the Wildcats bye week, with five games before the October 8 bye and six games after it. In addition to opening the season at home against Lehigh, the other non-conference opponents on the schedule include consecutive road games at LIU (September 10) and FBS foe Army West Point (September 17) during the second and third weeks of the season.
 
The conference schedule includes four home games and four road contests for each team as they face eight of the other 12 CAA Football members. Villanova begins conference play at home on September 24 against league newcomer Monmouth, with the Hawks making their official CAA debut earlier in the year with a Week 1 conference game at home against New Hampshire. There is at least one conference matchup during all 12 weeks of the regular season.
 
Villanova will also host UAlbany (October 22) and CAA newcomer Hampton (October 29) during the conference schedule, as well as hosting the annual "Battle of the Blue" rivalry game against Delaware on November 19 in the final game of the regular season. The road opponents for the Wildcats in league play are Maine (October 1), Richmond (October 15), Towson (November 5) and William & Mary (November 12).
 
Last season was an exciting one for Villanova as it won its first CAA title since 2012 and earned the league's automatic bid to the Division I Football Championship. The Wildcats hosted two postseason games and reached the quarterfinal round of the FCS playoffs to finish the year with a 10-3 overall record. It was the seventh time in program history that Villanova posted 10+ wins in a season and the playoff run was the team's deepest in seven years.