Inside the Patriot League · recap

Down ten with under a minute left: William & Mary stuns Villanova

Friday morning, we called this a bad draw — the league favorite, on the road, at night, in the first conference game that ever counted. We said the fourth-quarter scoreboard would tell you something either way, because a competitive loss at Villanova and a blowout are two very different pieces of information.

Nobody mentioned a third option.

William & Mary 35, Villanova 32. Down ten with under a minute to play. Won it anyway.

The last 53 seconds

The sequence deserves to be written down slowly, because each step of it was necessary and none of it was likely.

Trailing 32-22, Max Lipinski hit a 40-yard field goal with 53 seconds left. Down seven. Fine — that's the standard dignified-loss script. You kick it, you try the onside kick everyone in the stadium knows is coming, it doesn't work, you go home 0-1 and talk about moral victories.

Except the onside kick bounced off a Wildcat, and William & Mary came out of the pile with it inside the Villanova 40.

Three plays later, Winston Watkins dropped a ball 37 yards downfield into the hands of Kai Austin. Touchdown. Extra point. Tied at 32 with 22 seconds left, in a stadium that had spent most of the evening pretty sure how this ended.

Villanova could've taken a knee and played for overtime at home. Pat McQuaide went deep for the win instead — and Cade Ellis picked it off, his second interception of the night and McQuaide's third. The return put Lipinski in range one more time.

From 45 yards, as time expired: good.

The quarterback question, answered

Friday's preview said the biggest thing William & Mary had to sort out was quarterback — that Winston Watkins brought the kind of size and dual-threat ability that changes what the offense can call, and that the program hadn't said whether he had the job.

Consider it said. Watkins threw for 254 yards and two touchdowns, and — this is the part that matters — carried it 21 times for 72 more and a third score. Twenty-one carries isn't a quarterback keeping a defense honest. It's an offense built around a 6-foot-5, 245-pound problem, and Villanova never solved it.

Hold two things at once

One: this is a genuinely big win, and it counts. Villanova was picked to win this league — ahead of Lehigh, who've won it two years running. William & Mary just beat the favorite in its own building, in the first Patriot League game either school ever played. New league, and the Tribe's first impression is a 1-0 record with the best win anyone in the conference will have for a while.

Two: Villanova will watch the film and see a game it gave away, and they won't be wrong. The Wildcats led 17-10 at half and by ten inside the final minute. Jake Hilton went for 132 receiving yards, Isaiah Ragland ran for 94 and two scores, and Omari Bursey racked up 15 tackles. Ja'briel Mace — the Walter Payton watch-lister we spent Friday worrying about — added a touchdown of his own. Three interceptions and one unlucky bounce are how a favorite loses a game it mostly controlled.

Both things are true. The standings only print one of them.

What's next

William & Mary comes home. Saturday, September 5, Delaware State visits Zable Stadium for the home opener — the first meeting ever between the programs — and The Breakdown will be in the building for it. Preview later this week.

Kickoff is 6 p.m. in Williamsburg.