Arizona football embracing ‘next-man-up mentality’ at wide receiver

Arizona’s starting trio of Tre Spivey, Chris Hunter and Giovanni Richardson sustained injuries in the first half of the Wildcats’ first win in Big 12 play.

Richardson, after missing the last two games against Northern Illinois and Washington State from a leg injury he suffered in the first quarter of BYU, limped off the field on Saturday and returned to Arizona’s sidelines in his jersey and shorts.

Richardson established himself as Arizona’s WR1 with 16 catches for 187 yards, including two catches for 26 yards in his return on Saturday.

Hunter became the second Arizona receiver to sustain a leg injury and had a brace on his left knee on the UA sideline during the second half. Hunter has the fourth-most receiving yards (155) at Arizona this season.

The status of Richardson and Hunter for the Wildcats’ upcoming road trip against West Virginia in Morgantown is unknown. The first availability report of the Arizona-WVU game will be released Wednesday evening.

Spivey suffered a foot injury and is expected to miss the remainder of the season. The draft-eligible Spivey has one more season of eligibility.

The 6-4, 215-pound Spivey leads the Wildcats with 22 catches for 314 yards and four touchdowns this season. The fourth-year receiver had a career-high 129 yards on seven catches and two touchdowns last week against Washington State. 

Spivey leads the Wildcats in first-down catches (15) this season, according to Pro Football Focus; second-year wide receiver Isaiah Mizell has the second-most with eight — Hunter has seven.

The injuries are "one of those things you can’t plan for,” said Arizona head coach Brent Brennan. 

Arizona’s starting receiving trio in the second half was third-year receiver Brandon Phelps, freshman R.J. Mosley and Mizell, who had four catches for a career-high 67 yards.

UA played nine receivers on Saturday: Spivey, Hunter, Richardson, Phelps, Mizell, Mosley, Caleb "Jet" Smith, Rodney Gallagher III and DJ Jordan. Smith, who’s one of the top punt returners in the Big 12, was named Big 12 Freshman of the Week last week for his performance against Washington State, which included a go-ahead touchdown reception in the third quarter.

Phelps’ time to shine

Phelps scored a 24-yard touchdown near the end of the third quarter, which gave the Wildcats a 24-0 lead. Phelps avoided a low tackle, swung his leg up, maintained balance and ran in for his second touchdown as a Wildcat — the first since the season opener against NAU.

“I slipped through, made a play on the ball and made one miss and got a little touchdown,” Phelps said.

Phelps, a 6-3, 207-pound Gilbert native, is in his third season at Arizona following a prolific career at American Leadership Academy Gilbert North, where he set a state record with 282 career receptions for 4,971 yards and 61 touchdowns over four years. Phelps signed to play for UA’s previous coaching regime in 2024, but after head coach Jedd Fisch left for Washington, the in-state receiver stayed at Arizona.

After overcoming multiple injuries over the last two-plus seasons, Phelps was lauded by Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita and the UA coaches for having a productive winter in the weight room and practice field.

“Getting hurt is tough, man,” Phelps said. “It’s tough mentally and tough physically … I would show up and redline my rehab and stay in the playbook. It was something I continued to do every day. … They teach us resilience. That’s Arizona football.”

Phelps has ascended into a mainstay role and made his first start last week at Washington State, alongside Hunter and Spivey at slot receiver. Phelps had a critical 30-yard catch-and-run in the second half of Arizona’s loss to BYU.

Phelps has eight catches for 138 yards and two touchdowns this season.

“Brandon Phelps is an awesome young man and a great kid,” Brennan said. “He’s just a hard worker. Earlier in his career here, he’s had some unfortunate injury stuff, so you weren’t able to see him. … Numbers wise, he had one of the best offseasons of our entire team this past year. It’s great to see him starting to make plays. Because he’s tough, because’s smart, he’s also a guy that you can line up in any of the spots and he can play them all at a high level.”

Even though the absence of Spivey, Hunter and Richardson opens an opportunity for more playing time for Phelps and others, he’s empathetic.

“Those are your brothers,” Phelps said. “We’ve been grinding since January. Right after the Holiday Bowl, we had about two weeks off and we’ve been grinding since then. You’re with those guys 10-12 hours a day and you create such a connection with those guys. … At the same time, you’re going to want to perform your very best for those guys. You tell them that you love them and all of that, but you want to perform to the best of your ability.”

Arizona linebacker Chase Kennedy said the Wildcats “have a great next-man-up mentality, because we know whoever is in the game, we have to be able to trust that they know what to do and how to do it. We talk about response a lot within the program. That’s all we do, just respond to anything and everything that’s in our way.”

Not only did Arizona drub Cincinnati without its starting receiving trio, starting tight end Cole Rusk missed his second consecutive game with a leg injury he suffered against Northern Illinois. Backup tight end Shane King, who returned from injury on Saturday, limped off the field against Cincinnati. Arizona beating an undefeated Cincinnati team without its four starting pass catchers showed “we’ve got resilience, man,” Phelps said.

“I love this team,” Phelps said. “I love Tucson and I love this team. That’s Arizona football right there. We go through adversity and we come out with resilience.”

Cats not skipping a beat

When Arizona lost its starting trio to injuries, Fifita “didn’t flinch at all,” Phelps said. Arizona’s quarterback instilled confidence.

“Noah has complete faith in every single person in our room down to the last guy,” said Phelps. “He knew what he was going to do and we knew what we were going to do and come out and play the second half and win this game. We had no doubt in our minds we were going to come out and execute exactly what we needed to do.”

And the Wildcats did. Arizona out-gained Cincinnati 522-227 in total offense and produced the most yards of total offense since the Weber State game last season. UA’s 522 yards of offense is the most in a Big 12 game for the Wildcats since joining the league in 2024. Saturday marked the most yards of total offense for Arizona in a conference game since the 59-23 win over ASU in the 2023 Territorial Cup.

“Something we talked about throughout the week is being prepared and knowing the plays,” Phelps said. “There wasn’t any shock. (Arizona wide receivers coach Bobby Wade) came in and said, ‘We’re going to do exactly what we’re going to do and there’s going to be no humps.’

"We went out there and scored right at the (start of the) second half (against Cincinnati). We’re all prepared and ready to go and it’s a next-man-up mentality.”

Fifita said in the spring, “This is the best receiver room I've ever had from a depth standpoint.”

"You have speed and you have route-running," Fifita said in March. "More importantly, the relationship they have with each other, it's rare. There's only one football on the field and there's three receivers. To be able to have the selflessness and the genuine excitement for each other is special." 

Phelps, Smith, Mizell, Mosley and Gallagher — who’s returning to face West Virginia this week after transferring from WVU to Arizona this offseason — are just some of the names expected to assume larger roles in the Arizona offense. USC transfer DJ Jordan played his second game of the season on Saturday and was targeted once on eight offensive snaps. Jordan made a Tetairoa McMillan-esque one-handed catch on a pass that sailed out of the back of the end zone, so Jordan was well out of bounds.

If there’s anyone with T-Mac potential, it’s Mosley, who had one of the top training camps among Arizona’s newcomers. The 6-3, 197-pound Mosley, who was a four-star recruit and Arizona’s highest-rated signee in 2026, had multiple acrobatic and one-handed catches in training camp this summer.

Mosley rose to one of Arizona’s best jump-ball receivers, along with Spivey. Mosley and Smith provide Arizona a promising X-and-slot receiver tandem for at least the next two seasons. Coupled with Mizell’s speed and versatility at 6-1, 170 pounds, this week could be a preview of Arizona’s future pass catchers, with Richardson and Hunter’s availability for the West Virginia game in question.

“I feel for those young men that got banged up tonight, because they’re such big parts of our team,” Brennan said. “But we also know that all season, we’ve been talking about the depth in our receiver room and that’s going to be super, super critical now as we move forward.

“Those young players are ready to play. … The next part of our process is tailoring the scheme to what they do best.”

Extra points

– Arizona had the 33rd-most votes and received 19 points in the latest Associated Press Top 25 Poll. The Wildcats are the sixth-highest ranked Big 12 team in the AP Top 25 Poll behind No. 8 BYU, No. 11 Texas Tech, No. 12 Utah, No. 18 Oklahoma State and No. 22 Houston.

– Former Arizona kicker and Baltimore Ravens starter Tyler Loop, who was recently named AFC Special Teams Player of the Week for his game-winning field goal against the Dallas Cowboys, set the M&T Bank Stadium record for the longest field goal at 64 yards.