Wildcats

Villanova sits in the Colonial Athletic Association, and for most of the last two decades that has been the right place to look for them.

The step raised the level of opponent without changing much else.

2009 remains the season the Wildcats point back to: a national championship at FCS level, still the only one in the club's history. Everything since has run through the CAA rather than past it — the conference championships piled up through the 2010s, interrupted only by the years the league itself paused, but a second national title has not followed. Louisville and Bucknell have both appeared on the schedule in recent seasons as measuring points against Football Bowl Subdivision and CAA opposition respectively, and the gap between the two kinds of games says something about where Villanova's ceiling sits.

Blue and white, a campus stadium, a conference record few in the CAA can match — the identity is settled. What has not returned is the second national championship that would put 2009 in company rather than on its own.