For Villanova, spring football in 2021 means actual games | Mike Jensen

Spring football has usually meant something specific in college football — a chance to work on things for the following fall. Practice weeks. Depth-chart tinkering.

For Villanova and almost all of its Colonial Athletic Association brethren, including Delaware, spring football 2021-style is the real thing. Imagine some future historian looking back, saying, “Wait, they played football in 2021 in the spring and the fall?”

Making up for lost time …

“We haven’t played a real game in 15 months,” said Villanova football coach Mark Ferrante, speaking over the phone about how that is about to change with a March 6 opener at Stony Brook.

The sheer weirdness of it all? Baked in. A usual preseason camp is in August, where players have nothing but football on their plates. The rules have changed so two-a-days are things of the past, but that regulates hitting, not thinking.

“It’s just usually all football for the first two weeks,” Ferrante said. “But now you have class.”

And you might have heat in August, but no snow.

“The weather has been more stressful than the COVID right now,” Ferrante said. “Because the guys have been handling the COVID really well.”

Solving this puzzle includes being nimble, Villanova’s coach said, watching the forecast, scheduling the one day off per week accordingly. Be ready for anything.

Even the CAA schedule switched up, the original plan calling for two divisions, North and South, playing only games within the division. The dividing line? Basically, the Pennsylvania-Delaware border, since Villanova was in the North and the Blue Hens were supposed to be in the South.

When Towson opted out of playing, the CAA switched up, keeping travel schedules in mind. Now, it’s a four-team South, just the schools in Virginia and North Carolina, everybody playing each other home-and-home for six games. In the seven-school North, everybody plays once, so Villanova’s six-game regular season will conclude with a rivalry game, Villanova-Delaware. It just happens to be on April 17.

After that, there are plans for an FCS national tournament, starting April 24. With a strong veteran core, including quarterback Daniel Smith and running back Justin Covington, the Wildcats are picked to win the CAA North, and sixth nationally in the FCS preseason poll, which includes three other CAA North teams in the top 25.

Ferrante actually lost four players who would have suited up for fall football, including transfers to UCLA and Virginia Tech. The weirdness of all this will impact future seasons.

“Roster management, that’s all we’ve been thinking about since this thing got shut down," Ferrante said. “The people affected even more are the seniors in high school. There are so many less opportunities for them. We were fortunate to sign 11 high school seniors. Basically, we’ve had to work on a salary cap.”

Meaning?

“Every school, even though the NCAA waved their magic wand and gave everyone [another year of] eligibility,” Ferrante said, “how are you going to pay for it?”

Villanova signed the 11 recruits, a smaller class, “then froze our recruiting,” Ferrante said. “We can’t even take any more walk-ons. So you’re going to feel the effects of it down the road.”

Some of his seniors have already told him they’ll be moving on, ready for the working world. But they’ll wait and see how exactly the roster plays out after the spring season.

This spring, Ferrante figures he’ll probably play slightly more players, “just to help depth.”

Makes sense, with the fall season practically right on top of the spring season.

What is Ferrante expecting to see next weekend?

“It’s hard to say, because you haven’t the same type of prep, but neither has anyone else," Ferrante said, saying that when he watched early fall FBS games, “and even NFL games … until they got going a little bit, I thought some of the games were a little sloppy.”

The prep is all different, with most meetings held virtually. Even staff meetings, Ferrante said, even though coaches are all in their offices, and everybody has their own office, but they’ve only had two in-person staff meetings because the two spaces in the building that are large enough are now being used as classrooms.

No complaints from Villanova’s head coach. Head-spinning is just the word Ferrante used for it all.

“I think our team — our players and staff — have done a phenomenal job of going day-to-day,” Ferrante said. “From my perspective, I’m almost going by hour-by-hour.”

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