Wildcats come back to beat Lehigh

Any journey that starts with playoff aspirations probably shouldn't begin with back-to-back losses.

Yet for Villanova, it nearly did.

Under Andy Talley, who's in his 32nd and final season, the Wildcats were 26-5 in home openers.

One of those blemishes came in 2006 to Lehigh. The only one since then happened five years ago.

Saturday night on the Main Line, seven days after they were beaten at Pitt by 21, the Wildcats hosted a Lehigh team that had lost last week by two points to visiting Monmouth. It had also dropped the last four meetings in a series that had taken a five-year break.

Still, the 22nd-ranked Wildcats found themselves down by a point with eight minutes left, after Nick Shafnisky hooked up with Derek Knott on an 11-yard touchdown pass.

They went back in front with 4 minutes, 26 seconds left on a 2-yard run by Javon White on a fourth and 1, which was followed by a missed two-point try.

The Mountain Hawks then made it to the Villanova 31, After three incompletions, a pass to Troy Pelletier could get them only to the 23 with just over a minute to go and only two timeouts remaining.

So Villanova, which rushed for 396 yards on 52 attempts, survived, 26-21. It was victory No. 250 for the coach who was hired to restore the program at the FCS level in 1984.

The Wildcats will host Towson on Saturday afternoon in their Colonial Athletic Association opener.

"We were this close to beating a good football team," said Lehigh coach Andy Coen, the onetime Penn assistant.

White, a senior, finished with a 155 yards on 23 carries, which matched his career high. Quarterback Zach Bednarczyk had 92 yards on 13 carries, and Aaron Forbes 87 (including one of 54) on only four.

Bednarczyk went just 6 for 13 for 56 yards. It didn't matter this time. But it is a concern, as is the fact that the Wildcats missed a field goal and two PATs by two kickers, former walk-on Gerard Smith and Steve Weyler, who's on scholarship.

"That's an absolute killer," Talley said. "At least kick an extra point. I can live with a missed field goal. You can't be in harm's way on an extra point. And it's been like that for two years now.

"I guess we'll just have to have a repertoire of two-point plays."

The Wildcats trailed at the half, 14-6, a half in which they had seven penalties, one that wiped out what would have been a first-down run in the red zone.

"Frankly, it was embarrassing," Talley said. "I told them that, at a very high level, in the locker room. I never do that . . .

"Obviously, [250 is] a nice, round number. But they gave us all we wanted and more. I knew they'd come in and give us their best game. I told the kids what they saw on film wasn't what they were going to see tonight."

After all this time, it's an accumulated wisdom.