PHOENIX – When the University of Arizona football team took the field at Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, West Virginia last Saturday, the Wildcats were in a world of hurt. They had lost their leading three receivers, in terms of production, the previous week against Cincinnati.

Top receiver Tré Spivey suffered a season-ending broken foot, while Giovanni Richardson and Chris Hunter III departed the Cincinnati game early with leg injuries. With one Big 12 loss already on its record, Arizona couldn’t afford another if it wanted to stay in the race for the conference title and a College Football Playoff berth.

As it turned out, all the worry was for naught. Quarterback Noah Fifita and the offense didn’t skip a beat. 

Fifita threw for 341 yards and three touchdowns, sophomore Isaiah Mizell had six catches for 183 yards and two touchdowns, and Gilbert native Brandon Phelps had four catches for 88 yards and a touchdown as Arizona won its fourth straight game while posting a season-high in points in a 52-31 victory over the Mountaineers.

Wildcats coach Brent Brennan credited Fifita’s spring and summer regimen.

“I think it speaks to the confidence in and the chemistry he built with those guys in the offseason,” Brennan said. “He doesn’t just build that chemistry with Spivey and Gio and Chris Hunter, right? All those receivers are part of those throwing sessions when Noah says, ‘Hey, let’s go throw.’ 

“They all show up for that and he takes those reps just as seriously as he does a rep with Tré.”

Fifita has thrown for the fifth most passing yards in college football this season with 1,756 yards and 16 touchdowns, which is tied for sixth. Apparently, receivers are interchangeable for Fifita, an NFL draft hopeful.

“We talk about Noah a lot and rightfully so. He’s unbelievable,” Brennan said. “His preparation is just so thorough, just the way he takes notes in meetings, just like how every part of his process he is so engaged in. 

“I think you’re seeing the benefit of him having a coordinator for a second year now. His relationship with coach (Seth) Doege, their communication, like the consistency of what we’re doing offensively from the carryover from last year to this year.”

Even with three receivers down, the Wildcats’ receiving core feels it can get the job done no matter who Fifita is targeting.

“I feel like there’s no set one in our group,”  Mizell said. “Given an opportunity, everybody will shine.”

Mizell made a huge leap in his work with the Wildcats last year and it showed against West Virginia. In his first four games this season, he caught 13 passes for 176 receiving yards and two touchdowns. He nearly doubled his receiving yardage and doubled his touchdown total in a single game.

“He’s always been talented, but he was young, ” Brennan said. “The way he attacked the last nine months, 10 months has really been different.”

Mizell said he received words of encouragement from his injured receiving mates before the game.

“My motivation was Gio, Chris and Trey,” Mizell told reporters. “They all sent me text messages last night saying how much they believed in me and that just gave me a boost today.”

Mizell was able to show off the athleticism and speed that Boone High School (Orlando, Florida) coach Andy Johnson saw with regularity. 

“He’s a true freak 1% athlete,” Johnson said. “He could have been an elite soccer player. That’s what he was doing before football. He was at the soccer academy. He could have been an elite track athlete. His mom and dad were Florida Gator track athletes. His brother Aiden was an elite track kid. To his credit, he took a chance on football and I think it’s really going to pay off for him.”

At Boone, Mizell racked up 2,371 receiving yards and 40 touchdowns in his three-year career. The majority of his yards and touchdowns came in his junior and senior seasons.

“I was not surprised at all,” Johnson said of Mizell’s performance against West Virginia. “He’s so explosive. A lot of those big plays he had, he just overwhelms a defensive back because of his natural speed and acceleration, and he’s just on top of guys so fast. If you take one bad step, bad angle, it’s over.”

Alongside Mizell, Phelps recorded career highs with four receptions and 88 yards against West Virginia, including a 42-yard touchdown reception on a flea flicker pass in the fourth quarter to put his team up by two scores.

“It was a huge momentum swing for our team,” Phelps told reporters. “We were just running that all week and I knew exactly when we called that I was going to be open because they were just so scrambled even pre-snap. I just knew it was going to happen and I’m just happy that Noah found me and I’m just happy I could find the end zone.”

Mizell said Phelps’ performance was the kind of thing he sees regularly in practice from the junior, who played high school ball at American Leadership Academy, Gilbert North.

“I feel like a lot of people downplay him because of the other three receivers in the room,” Mizell said. “But Phelps is just as good as them.”

Arizona (5-1 overall, 2-1 conference) is on a bye week before facing Iowa State at home on Oct. 24. While Spivey won’t be back and Brennan said Richardson is “out for a little bit,” Hunter is expected to return against the Cyclones, giving Fifita plenty of options with his newfound targets, Mizell and Phelps.

“There’s a lot of stuff to be excited about in that film,” Brennan said. “Now we’re shifting gears to the bye week and really for me it’s how do we improve? How do we keep moving forward as a football team where we keep doing the things we need to do to continue to elevate every time we step on the practice field or step into the meeting room?”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.