Villanova’s Ferrante can’t help but worry about departing players
With the campus set to close Sunday and spring football cancelled, Villanova football coach Mark Ferrante spent his Friday scrambling to help his players make their way safely home in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s a weird/scary time,” Ferrante said by phone Saturday. “You want them to be safe. That’s first and foremost. You want to make sure that they have a way to get home. That’s what we’ve been doing. Once they get settled the priority is that they stay on top of their academics, number one, and take care of their bodies, number two. The problem is, you don’t know if they’re going to have a place to work out at when they get home.”
Villanova was scheduled to
hold the first of 15 spring practices on Tuesday. Under NCAA rules, teams can hold 15 practices over a 34-day period, according to Ferrante. The Wildcats were set to practice every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for the next three weeks. That all changed when the CAA announced it was canceling spring football for its member institutions on Friday.
The stoppage also affects
recruiting. The NCAA announced Friday it issued a recruiting dead period for all sports through April 15. There will be no on- or offcampus activities during that time.
“It’s the unknown,” Ferrante said. “That’s the scary part. You don’t know where we are with this thing. Are we behind the curve, ahead of the curve, you just don’t know.”
Ferrante said that the position coaches will stay in touch with their respective players during the crisis. The biggest issue is making arrangements for all
the players to get home. Villanova’s roster has players from 19 states and the District of Columbia.
“We’re not as spread out as some of the other teams here,” Ferrante said. “We have a player from Utah and one from Seattle, but wherever they’re going, you don’t know what they’re going home to? Would some of them be safer staying here?”
Villanova is expected to be one of the top teams in the FCS. The Wildcats have 18 projected starters and a similar number of backups set to return from a team
that went 9-4 and lost in the first round of the FCS playoffs.
Heading that list of returnees is quarterback Daniel Smith, who was a Walter Payton Award nominee for the second year in a row as the top offensive player in the FCS. Smith completed 236 of 396 passes for 3,274 yards and 35 touchdowns. He also ran the ball 84 times for 457 yards and 12 scores.
“Depending on whether or not school reopens, we may not see them again until June or July,” Ferrante said.