By KEVIN NOONAN

It was Senior’s Day for the Villanova football team, which was sort of ironic considering the Wildcats hardly have any seniors and don’t have any in their starting lineup.

The Villanova football program has run into hard times and it’s not hard to figure out why. When the Wildcats played their final game of the season at Villanova Stadium on Saturday they had only 10 seniors on their 80-man roster. Conversely, they had 10 red-shirt or true freshmen in their starting lineup and a total of 30 on their roster.

That inexperience has cost the Wildcats, and a team that won a national championship just two years ago may not win a single game in the conference this year.

Villanova has won just once all season, against Penn, an Ivy League team. And after Saturday’s 41-25 loss to Maine, Villanova is 0-6 in the CAA and they’ve been beaten by conference rivals by an average score of 35-15.

“I know what’s wrong with us right now,’’ Villanova coach Andy Talley said. “We’re too young and we don’t have an established quarterback. … We’ve played three different quarterbacks this year and you can’t do that. You’ve got to settle in on a guy and that’s your guy.

“If you look at all the teams in the conference who are winning, they have a guy,’’ Talley added. “You’ve got to have a guy. And, right now, we don’t have one.’’

That feast-or-famine is a fact of life for FCS schools. A big-time FBS team like Southern Cal or Alabama always has a bunch of high school All-Americans waiting in the wings and they don’t rebuild as much as they reload. But a school like Villanova, which graduated 21 seniors last year, most of them starters, can’t bounce back so quickly.

Wildcats senior RB Lawrence Doss is one of the few seniors who saw considerable playing time this season.

“When you do that [lose so many seniors] you’re going to pay the price a little bit,’’ Talley said. “And we’re paying that price right now.”

That’s especially true at quarterback. Smaller schools tend to ride a rollercoaster and it’s not a coincidence that the ride reaches its peak when they land a great QB — just like it’s not a coincidence that Maine, a first-place team, has a senior quarterback, Warren Smith, who combines talent and experience. Villanova, a last-place team, must suffer through the growing pains of freshman QB Chris Polony.

“Sometimes with this team you take a step forward and two back and end up in neutral,’’ Talley said. “And when you play neutral in the CAA, you can get beat by 20 points.”

Freshman running back Austin Medley said the Wildcats’ morale remains high, and he said a similar experience in the past helps him deal with Nova’s losing ways.

“I went through the same thing in high school,’’ said Medley, who went to Delsea High in Franklinville, N.J. “My sophomore year we struggled, won four or five games. But in my junior and senior years, we won championships.

“I feel like we’re on the same path here. I feel all of our hard work is going to pay off.”

Junior linebacker Devon Bridges also looks to the not-too-distant past for solace. He was a freshman reserve on the national championship team and a key part of last year’s team that finished 9-5 and advanced to the semi-finals of the FCS playoffs.

“I just look at last year’s class and how in sync they were and how long it took them to get to the point where they won a national championship,’’ Bridges said. “With us, it’s going to take the same amount of time. We’re a fairly young squad and being together a couple of more years, I feel like we’ll be able to put it all together.

“I see progress every day,’’ Bridges added. “I see something good from every player. So, for us, it’s not where we are as much as where we’re going.”

That hope for the future, fueled by the successes of the past, is what keeps the Wildcats going. They know they have a coaching staff that has won a lot of games before and will win a lot of games again. They just hope they’re still around when it happens.

“The future will be ours,’’ Talley said. “But not right now.’’