Six players to watch when Arizona hosts Northern Illinois

The Wildcats and Huskies from DeKalb, Illinois — a Mountain West team located just over 1,700 miles away from Tucson — will meet for the first time Saturday night at Casino Del Sol Stadium.

Here are three players to watch from both sides:

NIU

Taron Dickens, quarterback: The Northern Illinois quarterback has a couple of records under his belt. As a standout at Northwestern High School in Miami, Florida, Dickens set the Miami-Dade County record for career passing yards (10,076). Dickens is the nephew of former NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater, who also played at Northwestern High School.

Dickens signed with FCS Western Carolina in 2023 and played three seasons for the Catamounts. In 2025, Dickens passed for 3,508 yards and 38 touchdowns, a SoCon and school record. Some of his top games at Western Carolina were a 582-yard, six-touchdown performance against Samford and, more notably, a game against Wofford, when he completed 53 of 56 passes for 378 yards and four touchdowns — and set an NCAA record for most consecutive completed passes (46). Dickens was named the SoCon Offensive Player of the Year last season.

Dickens entered the transfer portal and committed to the Bill Belichick-coached North Carolina Tar Heels, but re-entered the portal and signed with NIU in July. Dickens — also known as Tyger — and Jalen Macon have both taken reps at quarterback, but Dickens is expected to start on Saturday.

Telly Johnson Jr., running back: The junior from Augusta, Georgia, had 93 yards of total offense in the Huskies’ loss to Illinois State last week. Johnson has recorded over 100 carries in each of the last two seasons for a total of 1,291 yards and nine touchdowns.

Jashawn Nelson, linebacker: The second-year player from Fort Wayne, Indiana, leads the Huskies in tackles (18) this season, along with linebacker Jack Murray. Nelson, who also has a pass deflection this season, leads the team in solo tackles (10). As a redshirt freshman last year, Nelson became the first Husky to block a punt since 2019. Nelson and Murray are the two linebackers in NIU’s 4-2-5 defensive scheme.

Arizona

Ismail Mahdi, running back: After Mahdi and linebacker Max Harris successfully filed a temporary restraining order against the NCAA, the five-for-five players were cleared for competition last week against BYU.

Harris played 29 defensive snaps, while Mahdi — who was Arizona’s leading rusher last season — was active, but didn’t play because Kedrick Reescano and Quincy Craig “ran with such physicality in that game,” said Arizona head coach Brent Brennan.

The decision to insert certain running backs “more by feel of how the game goes and we believe in those guys last weekend,” Brennan said.

Arizona offensive coordinator Seth Doege said earlier this week that he anticipates Mahdi making his season debut against NIU.

“That position, we’re going to need all of those guys,” Brennan said. “We’re going to need all of them throughout the course of the year. All of them are going to make plays for us. … That’s going to evolve as we go. The hard part when you have a lot of good skill players, there’s only one football. What you need from those guys is for those guys to be unselfish and do things for the greater good and that is the football team getting a win on Saturday.”

Daylen Austin, strong safety: The Oregon transfer isn’t expected to start, but he’ll likely play more than 17 defensive snaps against NIU.

Arizona rotated three players at strong safety against BYU: UConn transfer and veteran Lee Molette III, Gavin Hunter and Austin.

“We use that rotation how we’re going to use it,” said Arizona defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales.

Austin “is really, really elite in coverage,” Gonzales said, while Molette and Hunter “are very similar in skill traits.”

“We’re going to use those guys in situational football,” Gonzales said. “Because all three have the ability to blitz and be really twitchy off the edge, it’ll be hard to tell what we’re doing with them.”

Austin missed the spring and was limited during training camp after undergoing labrum surgery after his final season at Oregon. Last week was his Arizona debut after sitting out of the season opener.

“There’s a reason Oregon didn’t want him to leave,” Gonzales said. “I’m excited he’s here.”

Noah Fifita, quarterback: If Fifita passes for 320-plus yards on Saturday, he’ll pass Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles for the most career passing yards by a UA quarterback, a record Foles set in 2011. Foles was Doege’s roommate at the Manning Passing Academy the summer before Foles set the record.

Last season, Fifita passed Foles for career passing touchdowns and set the single-season passing touchdowns (29) record.

Fifita will likely either set the record on Saturday in front of the home crowd in Tucson — and they’ll stop the game to recognize Arizona’s quarterback making history — or he’ll do it against Washington State in Pullman, the venue where Fifita won his first game as Arizona’s starter in 2023.

If the game is out of reach for NIU and it’s time to take Fifita out of the game in the second half, Brennan doesn’t anticipate keeping Fifita in the game to pad his stats and reach the record.

“I don’t ever think of things in terms of that and I don’t think Coach Doege does — and, to be honest with you, I don’t think Noah Fifita does either,” Brennan said. “Noah Fifita is always about what is best for the program. What is best for the program is for him to be our quarterback for every game this entire football season.

“The decisions we have to make in-game or as the game flow happens, whatever that is, we’ll make those determinations as we go.”