EASTON, Pa. – Villanova will join the Patriot League as an associate conference member in football in the fall of 2026. The Wildcat program is the third addition approved by the Patriot League Council of Presidents since May of 2024, expanding the football membership to 10 institutions (five full members and five associate members). 

Richmond is set to join the league for play in 2025, competing alongside fellow associate members Fordham and Georgetown. William and Mary and Villanova will begin Patriot League action in 2026. Full members Lafayette, Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross and Lehigh make up the balance of Patriot League football. The league will continue to play a single round-robin schedule.

William and Mary's addition came in April of 2025, just shy of a year from the Richmond announcement which marked the first football expansion since 2001.  

Lafayette and Villanova have met just six times in the Leopards' 143 seasons, stretching back to the first meeting in 1898. Lafayette holds a 4-2 advantage all time, last playing the Wildcats in 2017. Villanova had been an associate member of the Coastal Athletic Association since 2007.