Villanova Hosts Lehigh Saturday Night In Home Opener
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Villanova Wildcats will play their 2016 home opener on Saturday night as they welcome Lehigh to the Main Line.
The Wildcats of FCS jumped up a level to visit the University of Pittsburgh in their opener. While they lost 28-7, they gave the Panthers a battle.
Pittsburgh really won this game right before and right after halftime. The Panthers scored a touchdown with 19 seconds left in the second quarter to take a 14-0 lead and then they returned the second half kickoff for a score to extend that advantage to 21-0.
"We played a very good football team, especially defensively," Villanova head coach Andy Talley tells KYW Newsradio. "We held them to (261) yards total offense, so our defense really stepped up and played great. We just couldn't support them the way we needed to offensively. They just have a great defense."
Listen to the entire interview with Villanova's Andy Talley:
Villanova quarterback Zach Bednarczyk went 16 of 31 against that defense for 119 yards. He was intercepted once.
"I think Zach learned a lot from this game," Talley says. "He had to get rid of the ball a lot quicker than we wanted him to. He ran for his life a few times and got us some yards. But, all in all, I thought he played well."
Lehigh lost its season opener to Monmouth last weekend 23-21.
"Lehigh's always a good football program," Talley says. "They are very well coached, Andy Coen does a great job up there. They are one of the better teams in the Patriot League, year in and year out, and now they're (a) scholarship (program), so they have some very, very good football players. I think they are one of the better offenses that we will see."
These two teams last met on September 11th, 2010, and it was Villanova winning that game 35-0.
Saturday's game at Villanova Stadium will kick-off at 6:00pm.