CHERRY HILL, N.J. – At the annual Philadelphia Sportswriters Banquet held at the Doubletree by Hilton in Cherry Hill, N.J., on Wednesday evening, the Villanova University football team was honored as the Philadelphia Area Team of the Year.
 
The Wildcats are coming off a season where they tallied a 12-3 overall record and a 7-1 CAA mark. Villanova earned playoff wins over Harvard, Lehigh and Tarleton State, before falling to Illinois State in the national semifinals. The consecutive wins over Lehigh and Tarleton State in the second and quarterfinal playoff rounds were the first time in 15 years that the Wildcats won back-to-back road games against Top 5 ranked opponents.
 
For their efforts in 2025, Villanova finished the season ranked No. 4 in the final national rankings.
 
The postseason run by the Wildcats was one of the most impressive in the past several seasons of the Division I Football Championship. Villanova is only the second team in the 48-year history of the tournament to host a semifinal game after playing back-to-back road games in the previous two rounds. This season is the fourth time overall that the Wildcats have advanced to the semifinal round. Villanova is 18-16 all-time in the FCS playoffs and has the ninth most wins in tournament history among programs that still play at the FCS level.
 
Following a 1-2 start to the 2025 season and consecutive losses at FBS foe Penn State and at Monmouth in the CAA Football opener, the Wildcats reeled off 11 consecutive victories to tie the second-longest winning streak in program history.
 
Villanova earned an at-large bid to the playoffs as the tournaments #12 seed and reached the brink of becoming only the third double-digit seed ever to advance to the championship game. Part of the team's formula for success was a veteran roster which had a combined 1,880 career games played, including 29 members on the roster who played in at least 30 games during their collegiate careers.