The theme Mark Ferrante has kept to this offseason is what he believes can elevate Villanova – perhaps from the good team it was last year into a national contender it could be this coming fall.

“The key for us is to play the full four quarters,” Ferrante, the fourth-year Wildcats coach, said. “We’ve talked about that. We want to finish games.”

Villanova exceeded all expectations in 2019, tallying a 9-4 overall mark to reach the FCS postseason after being tabbed to place ninth in the Colonial Athletic Association preseason poll. Ferrante’s bunch was 5-3 in the league, but if not for blown leads in the second half of CAA games – a seven-point fourth-quarter advantage at James Madison, a 35-20 fourth-quarter edge against Stony Brook and a 20-7 third-quarter lead at New Hampshire – might’ve captured the conference crown and set itself up for a better draw in the playoffs.

League champion JMU used its come-from-behind win over Villanova as a springboard for a run that pushed the team all the way to the FCS title game. The Wildcats were eliminated in the opening round of the tournament at Southeastern Louisiana.

This season, Villanova is slated to host the Dukes on Oct. 24.

“It’s finishing for us,” Ferrante said. “It’s back to that now. At the end of three quarters we were sitting where you want to be, but you’ve got to finish and win the fourth quarter.”

The glaring positive for Ferrante is 10 starters return on offense and another eight are back on defense for Villanova, which should only help the coach navigate his objective to push the team forward and build off of everything the squad did accomplish last fall – the first winning campaign for the Wildcats under Ferrante. Ten of the 18 returners were All-CAA selection last season.

“I do feel that our guys have a little bit of an unfinished thought process on the mind right now,” he said.

Most preseason prognosticators view Villanova as the team in the league capable of knocking JMU off the top spot.

“And we’ve had a lot of returning players before in various years in all the years I’ve been here,” said Ferrante, who was a longtime assistant under former coach Andy Talley before earning the promotion to headman. “But I don’t remember having the leader back in every statistical category – leading passer, leading rusher, leading receiver, leading tackler, leading interceptor – and we do have that this year. On paper things are very optimistic, but you don’t win games on paper.”

Of the returnees, none are more important than senior quarterback Daniel Smith. He threw for 3,274 yards and 35 touchdowns compared to only 10 interceptions in his first season with the program after transferring from Campbell.

And Smith has all the receivers and running backs he needs to have an opposing defense stressed. Senior wide receiver Changa Hodge hauled in 13 catches for touchdowns as part of a 65-reception, 1,118-receiving yard showing last fall. The second- and third-leading pass catchers, receiver Jaaron Hayek and tight end Todd Summers are back, too.

To balance the passing game, senior running back Justin Covington is on track to return after suffering a season-ending ACL injury last fall. Covington was the conference’s leading rusher at the time of his injury.

“He seems ready to rock and roll,” Ferrante said. “I know the trainers and our medical team are going to be smart about his return, but as far as where he is and when you have a guy like Cov, who is built the way he is and is as strong as he is going into a surgery like that, he seemed to recover quicker because of the makeup that he had prior to.”

Ferrante said outside of the Zoom meetings he’s had with the team that he’s spoken most to Covington and junior linebacker Forrest Rhyne, who amassed 116 tackles to go along with 14.5 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks in 2019. According to the coach, Covington and Rhyne are the unquestioned leaders of the roster.

“When you have guys like Forrest and Covington, you know it’s a darn good starting point building through the rest,” Ferrante said. “And we have a lot of older guys back, so I think our upperclassmen leadership right now is as good as its been, at least going into my fourth year as head coach.”

Rhyne was a first-team All-CAA choice in 2019, and senior cornerback Jaquan Amos and senior defensive end Malik Fisher were third-team all-league selections.