Villanova’s Matt Szczur can do it all.

On Saturday, when the fourth-ranked Villanova Wildcats (6-1, 3-1 CAA) go for their seventh win of the 2009 season on Homecoming Day at Villanova Stadium against Rhode Island (1-5, 0-3 CAA), head coach Andy Talley will be aiming for much more. The Wildcats mentor will be looking for win 200 of a coaching career that started at St. Lawrence University and has continued for the last 25 seasons on the Main Line, where Talley has posted 171-102-1 mark.

One player the ‘Cats will be looking to for help in getting Talley to the plateau that only 55 other coaches have achieved is junior wide receiver Matt Szczur. Several times in the past, Villanova has had a player who was able to do a little bit of everything when he had the ball in his hands – most notably Eagles running back Brian Westbrook, who won the 2001 Walter Peyton Award which signifies the most outstanding offensive player at the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level. This season, the 5-11, 195 Szczur, who was star quarterback and defensive back at Lower Cape May Regional High School, is that jack of all trades for the Wildcats. In seven games, he is averaging 145.4 all-purpose yards a game which leads the Colonial Athletic Association and he’s tied for the league lead with seven touchdowns. Overall, Szczur has 311 yards rushing and three touchdowns on 37 carries; he’s caught 24 balls for 234 yards and three scores and has averaged almost 30 yards a kickoff return.

While touting him for All-American status, Talley said that Szczur does things that Westbrook didn’t do, “Brian returned kicks and punts in addition to running and receiving. Matt does that and is also on all of our kick-coverage teams. That’s something Brian didn’t do. So he’s a very important player for us.”

Following Talley to the podium at a recent coaches luncheon, Penn head coach Al Bagnoli said, “I second the Matt Szczur fan club after what he did to us.”

Bagnoli was referring to the Wildcats 14-3 win over the Quakers on September 19 when Szczur returned the opening kickoff 87 yards for a touchdown in what turned out to be a defensive battle.

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Speaking of the Quakers (3-2, 2-0 Ivy) defense, the unit is playing at a high level as they host Yale (3-2, 1-1 Ivy) on Saturday at Franklin Field. They rank second in the nation in total defense (226.8 yards per game), 11^th in scoring defense (14.8 points per game) and 10^th with 15 sacks. In last week’s 27-13 win at Columbia, they forced seven turnovers, had three sacks and held the Lions to minus 20-yards rushing all while not allowing any second-half points.

“We’ve got play makers on all three levels,” Bagnoli said when asked what made his defense special. “We’ve have a dominate down kid in (nose guard) Joe Goniprow, he always has to be double-teamed. We have a dominate inside linebacker in Jake Lewko, everybody has to know where he is and we finally got our cornerback back. We probably have the best set of corners in the league with Chris Wynn (who missed two weeks due to an injury) being back and Jonathan Moore on the other side and that allows you some flexibility to blitz and play man-to-man and not worry about it too much. When you have those three pieces in place you have a chance to be a pretty good team.”

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After playing five of their first six games on the road while their stadium was being renovated, Rowan (5-1, 4-1 NJAC) returns home on Saturday to take on Buffalo State (1-5, 1-4 NJAC). It will be a special day in Glassboro as the stadium will be dedicated as the Coach Richard Wackar Stadium. It honors a man who coached the Profs football team from 1963 to 1980 and also coached the school’s basketball, golf and cross country teams. His teams won NJAC titles in all four sports and is the only coach to accomplish such a feat in league history.

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Delaware Valley College (5-1, 3-0 MAC) travels to Williamsport to take on Lycoming College (3-3, 2-1 MAC). Starting with this game, the Aggies play three of their last four on the road.

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Lincoln University (3-5) concludes the home portion of their second season since restarting the program with a visit from Virginia State (4-4).

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Widener University (3-3, 1-2 MAC) tries to break a two-game losing streak at unbeaten Albright (6-0, 3-0 MAC). Widener has won nine of the last 11 in the series but fell last year 21-10.

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After last week’s upset of Johns Hopkins, Ursinus (3-3, 3-1 Centennial) looks to keep their momentum going with a trip to McDaniel (4-2, 2-2 Centennial), who they’ve beat three straight times.