INSIDE COLLEGE FOOTBALL
A Slam Dunk
Villanova is whooping it up
by Ivan Maisel
Posted: Wed November 12, 1997
Florida State might have ruined North Carolina's perfect season,
but there's still one basketball school undefeated in football.
Villanova is 9-0 and ranked No. 1 in Division I-AA for the first
time. "A lot of people say, 'You're a basketball school,'"
Wildcats coach Andy Talley says. "Well, we've been to the
playoffs four times in eight years, so we're showing we can do
it in football as well."
Villanova, which defeated visiting New Hampshire 23-20 in wet
and windy conditions last Saturday, has already clinched a berth
in the 16-team I-AA playoffs, which begin Nov. 29. Using a West
Coast offense and a slew of West Coast players (19 from
California alone, including 10 starters), the Wildcats are
averaging 39.0 points per game, second in Division I-AA, while
limiting opponents to 16.6 points. Villanova's best player, 6'5"
wide receiver Brian Finneran, a senior from Mission Viejo,
Calif., leads I-AA with 15 touchdown catches.
Football success is not entirely foreign to longtime fans on the
Main Line. Playing the top division, Villanova appeared in the
1961 Sun Bowl and the '62 Liberty Bowl and later produced NFL
standouts Mike Siani and Howie Long. But the school was
unwilling to spend the money to remain in big-time football, and
it eliminated the sport from '81 to '84. In '85 Talley, a
cigar-smoking martinet from nearby Bryn Mawr, Pa., was hired
away from St. Lawrence University to reinstate football, and he
has since built the Wildcats into a I-AA force.
Don't look for the football program to join its basketball
counterpart on the big stage. Last month the school's board of
trustees declined an invitation to join the Big East in
football. "It would have cost us $50 million to $60 million to
build a stadium and do all the other things the Big East
requires," Talley says. "For the time being, it wasn't something
we were willing to do."
Villanova, for now, will have to settle for being the best
undefeated basketball school in football.
Issue date: November 17, 1997
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