99.8%.
That’s the percentage ESPN’s analytics gave Villanova to win with just over two minutes to play Friday night. And honestly? That felt generous to us. The Wildcats led 32-22. They were ranked No. 8/7 in the country, they were at home, they’d reached the FCS semifinals a year ago, and they hadn’t lost a season opener since Mark Ferrante took over; that’s nine straight. William & Mary was unranked, on the road, and playing the first game of its life as a member of the Patriot League.
Then the Tribe scored 13 points in 53 seconds and won 35-32. Yes, you read that correctly.
We’ve been covering this program since 2014, and we’re struggling to name a wilder finish across any sport. And we’ve seen some wild contests (Daniel Dixon against Hofstra in the CAA Tournament, anyone?). So let’s walk through it properly, because this one earns a full retelling. Roll Tribe roll.
Fifty-three seconds that Tribe fans will be describing to their grandchildren.
When Villanova junior running back Isaiah Ragland broke off a 37-yard touchdown run with 2:43 left to make it 32-22, that felt like that. Game over. Nice try, fellas, see you next Saturday. W&M needed everything to break right from there.
Everything did.
First came a gutsy 12-play, 52-yard drive that chewed up 1:50 and ended with W&M kicker Max Lipinski hitting from 40 with 53 seconds showing; 32-25, and now we’re at least talking about it. Then came the onside kick, and what an onside kick. Sam Braidwood dribbled it exactly where he wanted to, the ball glanced off a Wildcat, and the Green and Gold fell on it at the Villanova 39.
Three plays and 28 seconds later, the Tribe’s newly minted starter and lefty quarterback Winston Watkins, listed at 6’5″ 250 with a build rivaling Josh Allen, let one fly and receiver Kai Austin hauled it in from 37 yards out. Lipinski’s PAT tied it at 32 with 22 seconds left. At this point, if you’re anything like us, you were standing up in your living room yelling at a television.
Now, most teams take the tie right there and happily head to overtime. This one didn’t. On third-and-10 from his own 35, Villanova’s Pat McQuaide threw it downfield and W&M’s Cade Ellis picked it off (his second interception of the night, mind you), returning it 24 yards to the Wildcat 28 with five seconds on the clock. One play left. And Lipinski, a transfer from JMU with limited college kicking experience, calmly drilled it from 45 as time expired. Ice cold. History made.
Five field goal attempts on the night. Five makes: 22, 39, 41, 40, and 45 yards. A kicker nobody outside the building had heard of went a perfect 5-for-5 and then won a football game against the league favorite on its own field.
And can we please talk about the defense for a second? Four takeaways, three of them interceptions of McQuaide, whose eligibility was only sorted out by a, dare we say controversial(?), preliminary injunction less than an hour before kickoff. Villanova coughed up a fumble too. You simply do not beat a top-10 team on the road without winning the turnover battle, and W&M won it decisively. Credit to head coach Mike London and his staff for having this group ready in Week Zero.
Winston Watkins is going to be a problem for the rest of this league.
So who exactly is this guy? If you hadn’t seen Winston Watkins play before Friday, you have now. The junior transfer from Towson is, again, listed at 6’5″, 250 pounds; that is a genuinely enormous human being, and he happens to throw left-handed and run like he’s annoyed about something. The Josh Allen comparison writes itself, and after one game we’re not going to let anyone talk us out of it. And yes, the WMSB founders are indeed Bills fans. See you in Buffalo week three. Go Joe Brady.
The line: 19-of-33 for 254 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception, plus 21 carries for 72 yards and a rushing score. Watkins uncorked a 68-yard touchdown toss in the first half, punched one in from a yard out in the third quarter to put W&M ahead 19-17, and then ripped off a beautiful 37-yard strike that tied it at the very end. That’s a quarterback who can beat you two different ways, and it’s the single biggest reason this offense looks nothing like the one Tribe fans watched last fall.
Carson Jenkins is back, and this offense can absolutely fly.
That 68-yarder went to senior receiver Carson Jenkins, and that one’s worth touching on for a moment.
Longtime readers may remember Jenkins as the All-CAA first-team punt returner back in 2024, the year he took one back 90 yards against Bryant for what was, at the time, the longest punt return in the entire FCS. Then last season he played just four games before losing the rest of the year to injury. Friday, in his first game back on a big stage, he went for three catches, 69 yards, and a touchdown; 23 yards per grab.
He wasn’t alone, either. Austin led the team with four catches for 76 yards and the game-tying score, while Khylil Johnson added four for 75 with a 42-yard long. Three receivers averaging better than 18 yards a catch in one night.
Now for the parts that need work (and yes, there are some).
Here’s the honest read, and we’d be doing our readers a disservice not to mention it: the ground game never really got going. W&M ran it 41 times for 130 yards, which comes out to 3.2 a carry, and Watkins was the team’s leading rusher at 72. Running back Andrew King managed 45 on 10 totes, but 34 of those came on one run; strip that out and the rest of his night was 11 yards on nine carries. When your quarterback leads the team in rushing on a night like that, it usually isn’t because the plan worked; it’s because the plan had to change on the fly.
Now, credit where credit is due. Villanova was picked first in the Patriot League for a reason, and that defensive front is legitimate. This was not a soft opening act.
The other thing we’re watching closely: we’ve got to get the tight end going. Senior Sean McElwain was named Preseason All-Patriot League at the position after earning Third Team All-CAA honors a year ago, and he finished Friday with exactly one catch for nine yards. That’s a proven weapon sitting right there. Against a Lehigh or a Richmond, when the safeties are backpedaling to take away the shots to Jenkins and Austin, the middle of the field is precisely where this offense should be feasting.
One more detail that very nearly changed everything: Lipinski missed the PAT after Watkins’ rushing touchdown, which is the only reason the Tribe led 19-17 instead of 20-17 heading into the fourth. Make that kick and Austin’s touchdown puts W&M ahead 33-32 rather than tying it, and the 45-yarder is gravy instead of a necessity. Alas, he more than made up for it.
So what does all of this mean for the Patriot League race?
Quite a lot, actually. Some context.
In the Patriot League preseason poll, voted on by the league’s ten head coaches, Villanova took the top spot with 79 points and seven of the ten first-place votes. Lehigh, the two-time defending champion, finished second with 75. William & Mary tied historic rival Richmond for third at 57.
The Tribe also placed four players on the preseason all-conference team: McElwain at tight end, graduate defensive lineman Davin Dzidzienyo, senior defensive back Bryce Barnes, and junior linebacker Stephon Hicks as the league’s special teams non-specialist. And here’s a fun one for you: Hicks tied for the national FCS lead last season with four blocked kicks. In a conference where games routinely come down to three points, that is a genuinely terrifying player to have on your roster.
So the preseason consensus said W&M was a solid top-half team that probably wasn’t winning the thing. One week in, the Tribe owns the head-to-head over the favorite and sits at 1-0 in league play. That’s not nothing; that’s a real leg up in a race everybody expected to come down to the final Saturday in Richmond.
And frankly, this program has earned the benefit of the doubt. Five consecutive winning seasons is the longest such run in Williamsburg since the 1990s.
Up next: Delaware State comes to Zable.
Delaware State visits Walter J. Zable Stadium next Saturday for an out of conference Tribe contest, September 5, at 6 p.m. for the Go Green Game and a tribute to Lou Holtz, who of course coached right here in Williamsburg long before the rest of the country ever found out about him. After that it’s a massively important trip to No. 11 Lehigh on the 12th, Fordham at home for Family Weekend, and then Duke down in Durham on the 26th.
There is a very long way to go. But Tribe highlights ran on national SportsCenter on Saturday morning, and every W&M fan who sat through that fourth quarter is still a little bit lightheaded.
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Fifty-three seconds. Two-tenths of one percent chance to win. A brand new league, and a brand new quarterback who looks like he was built in a lab.
If this is what the Patriot League era is going to look like in Williamsburg, sign us up.
See you at Zable on Saturday. LET’S GO TRIBE!
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