VILLANOVA, Pa.—Coming off a dominant regular season and riding its longest winning streak in 16 years, the Villanova football team is headed back to the FCS playoffs. The field of 24 teams for the NCAA Division I Football Championship was announced Sunday afternoon live on ESPNU and the Wildcats earned the #12 seed in the tournament bracket. Villanova (9-2) will host a first round game on Saturday, November 29, against Harvard (9-1), an at-large selection from the Ivy League. The teams will meet for the first time ever with kickoff slated for 12 p.m. at Villanova Stadium. Tickets can be purchased here and the game will be broadcast live on ESPN+.
 
Sunday's bracket selection show came just hours after the final day of the regular season when the Wildcats defeated Sacred Heart, 34-10, for their eighth consecutive win. The victory extended Villanova's streak of winning nine games during the regular season to three years in a row and four of the last five seasons. That formula – nine wins – is a sure-fire path to the playoffs and this season was no different for a Wildcats program which is no stranger to the playoffs. Villanova is making its 17^th FCS playoff appearance all-time, its third in a row and fifth in the last seven years under head coach Mark Ferrante.
 
Villanova has been an exciting and explosive team this season, averaging more than 30 points per game while committing the fewest turnovers of any FCS team in the country. After being defeated in their first conference game of the season at Monmouth, the Wildcats rebounded to win seven straight CAA Football games for only the second time ever. Villanova finished in sole possession of second place in the CAA standings and is one of three conference teams headed to the playoffs along with league champion Rhode Island as well as New Hampshire. This is the 35^th consecutive season that CAA Football has had multiple selections to the FCS playoff field.
 
The winner of Saturday's game between the Wildcats and the Crimson will advance to the second round and play #5 seed Lehigh. That game will take place on Saturday, December 6 at Goodman Stadium in Bethlehem, Pa. Villanova is 15-15 all-time in the playoffs and has advanced to the quarterfinal round twice in the last five seasons (2021, 2023). Ferrante has been a part of all 17 of the program's playoff berth during his years as an assistant coach and now as a head coach for the fifth time. He became the second winningest coach in Wildcats history with his 66^th victory yesterday against Sacred Heart.
 
In addition to its overall eight-game winning streak, Villanova carries into the playoffs the longest active home winning streak in the FCS. The streak began midway through the 2022 season and the Wildcats extended the longest home winning streak in program history to 22 straight games in Saturday's regular season finale. The win over Sacred Heart was also the 21^st consecutive regular season non-conference win over an FCS opponent. Over the last 10 seasons (2016-25), Villanova owns a dominant record of 25-5 (.833) against FCS non-conference foes in the regular season and playoffs.
 
There is star power for the Wildcats on both sides of the ball. Graduate quarterback Pat McQuaide (Solon, Ohio) has thrown for 2,356 yards with 19 touchdowns and just two interceptions. A deep corps of running backs includes the explosive junior Ja'briel Mace (Somers Point, N.J.) who has two touchdown runs of at least 80 yards this season and set the Villanova single-game record with 291 rushing yards at Towson on November 8. Mace ranks 10^th in the country with an average of 128.6 all-purpose yards per game.
 
Senior linebacker Shane Hartzell (Perkasie, Pa.) leads the defense and was a preseason All-America selection. He has a team-high 72 tackles on the year and is also the Wildcats leader with 12 tackles for loss and six sacks. Villanova has allowed just 16.1 points per game and 107.4 rushing yards per game during its eight-game winning streak. In the victory over Sacred Heart on Saturday, the Wildcats held a team averaging 229.7 rushing yards per contest to just 88 yards on the ground and 2.9 yards per carry on 30 attempts.
 
This is the first year that Ivy League teams are eligible for the FCS playoffs. The league proved its mettle with two teams in the 24-team playoff field. Harvard earned an at-large bid after a 9-1 regular season, its only loss coming to automatic qualifier Yale in the regular season finale yesterday. The Crimson average 39.4 points per game and have a +23.1 scoring margin on the year. Since becoming an FCS program in 1985, the Wildcats are 15-1 (.938) against Ivy League teams. All 16 of those games have come against either Penn (14 matchups) or Columbia (two matchups), with the most recent coming versus the Quakers in 2015.