Arizona’s offense came alive in Morgantown on Saturday morning, and Brent Brennan’s team walked out with a 52-31 road win over West Virginia to improve to 5-1.
It was Arizona’s first time topping 50 points since a 52-17 road victory at Colorado in Week 7 last year, and Noah Fifita kept piling up milestones along the way. The quarterback turned in his 11th career 300-yard passing game, moving into second place in program history behind Nick Foles.
The Wildcats led 24-17 at halftime, but they didn’t fully shake the Mountaineers until late in the third quarter. West Virginia kept answering with quick scoring drives and finished with 303 rushing yards, but Arizona’s depth eventually took over against Rich Rodriguez’s team.
Even with Gio Richardson, Tre Spivey and Chris Hunter III unavailable, Arizona’s passing game still found plenty of room to work. Sophomore Isaiah Mizell was the headliner, catching six passes for a career-high 183 yards and a touchdown.
His biggest moment came with less than a minute left in the third quarter. On 3rd-and-7, West Virginia brought heavy pressure, Fifita hit Mizell in the middle of the field, and the sophomore turned it into a 72-yard touchdown that stretched the lead to 38-24.
Mizell more than doubled his season receiving total in one night, and Brandon Phelps added four catches for 88 yards and a touchdown as well. Together, they showed just how deep Arizona’s wide receiver room can be.
Defensively, junior safety Cam Chapa kept building on what has become one of Arizona’s best storylines of the season. A transfer from Northern Colorado, Chapa had contributed in the first three games before making a bigger splash in Week 4 with an interception and quarterback hit against Washington State.
That earned him a start at West Virginia, and he delivered with 15 combined tackles, including 10 solo stops and one tackle for loss. With West Virginia running the ball 76 times, Chapa was constantly around the action and helped hold the Mountaineers to 4.0 yards per carry.
He also held up in coverage, as Michael Hawkins finished with 11 completions on 28 attempts and no touchdown passes.
Arizona did plenty right on defense, including slowing West Virginia’s running game and making key red-zone stops. But the Wildcats had trouble getting off the field on later downs. West Virginia finished 9-for-19 on third down and 2-for-7 on fourth, and those conversions helped the Mountaineers stay in it longer than Arizona wanted.
In the end, the Wildcats outlasted the surge, but West Virginia still outgained them 522-482. That third-down resistance, or lack of it, is the kind of thing Dany Gonzales will be thinking about over the next two weeks before Arizona plays again.
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Arizonas Offense Is Creating A Ceiling Fans Havent Seen In Years
Arizonas recent run has started to look less like a hot streak and more like a team discovering its range on offense. The Wildcats knocked off West Virginia 52-31 on the road, won for the fourth straight time and matched their best start since 2014, with Noah Fifita directing the attack and Isaiah Mizell emerging as a major playmaking threat in the passing game.
The bigger picture for Arizona is hard to miss now: this is an offense producing like one with a much higher ceiling than anyone around the program has seen in years. Even in a game where West Virginia piled up yards, the Wildcats kept answering and kept scoring, leaving plenty of room for curiosity about just how far this group can go if the production continues to climb. [Read more 🡒]