{"id":187669,"date":"2025-10-03T15:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/187669\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T15:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:52:10","slug":"hogan-mital-could-join-an-exclusive-group","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/187669\/","title":{"rendered":"Hogan: Mital Could Join an Exclusive Group"},"content":{"rendered":"

Terry Greer, Michael Clemons, Derrell Mitchell, S.J. Green and\u2026Kevin Mital?<\/p>\n

On the surface it looks like a Toronto Argonauts version of the Sesame Street game One of These Things is Not Like the Others. Four of the receivers are rightfully members of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame, the fifth is in just his second season in Double Blue but is on the verge of becoming the fifth member of an incredibly exclusive club.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mital has a CFL-high 84 catches this season, a sweet sixteen shy of joining the Argos century club.<\/p>\n

If the Laval product being on the brink of entering such an esteemed collection of pass catchers surprises you, don\u2019t be alarmed, it also caught Mital off-guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good start,\u201d Mital said when informed by Argonauts.ca he was within distance of joining an elite group, laughing before changing the subject. \u201cWe try to win games and it\u2019s not going our way right now, but we\u2019ve still got three on the way and we\u2019re trying to win them.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if joining that group would mean anything to him, the receiver, while not being disrespectful of the others in the group, reiterated stats just aren\u2019t his thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot really,\u201d was his response to the question, \u201cIt\u2019s not like I\u2019m getting 100 and we\u2019re 18-0. We\u2019ve still got the same record and that won\u2019t change anything. I guess it\u2019s a good thing for me as a player to stay here with the Argos. I\u2019m trying to stay in Toronto as long as I can, so I guess that\u2019s a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mital was not the only one who wasn\u2019t aware of his catch total. Receivers coach Pete Constanza also was taken aback when informed of that number by Argonauts.ca.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not aware of that,\u201d he confessed. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me, but I don\u2019t look at the numbers. It doesn\u2019t surprise me because of his athletic ability, and I know he started the season really well.\u00a0 I\u2019m pleasantly surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

So why the dramatic increase in production this year? In his rookie season he had just 18 catches on 22 targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always a part of the game plan,\u201d explained Costanza, \u201cespecially because of what he does once the ball is in his hands (Mital is third in the CFL in yards after catch). To look at the number of catches is usually an end of year thing, but with the history of the Argos, all the years we\u2019ve played, to have a guy that\u2019s that close to being in the top five just speaks to the type of year he is having.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It\u2019s gone far beyond what Mital was hoping for when the season began.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only goal I had coming into this season was to get a starting spot and help the offence,\u201d said Mital. \u201cI\u2019m not into numbers that much, just trying to win some games.\u201d<\/p>\n

A recent hot streak has put the Montreal native within reach of the magical number. He\u2019s caught 15 passes in his last two games, 35 in his last five. If he were to hit the one hundred mark it would be an accomplishment that he\u2019d be happy with, but there are other things he\u2019s more concerned about.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve still got a lot to prove,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat I\u2019m doing right now is a lot of low levels (underneath routes). I\u2019m trying to show that I can be a threat down the field, that\u2019s something I have to add to my assets as a player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mital was a dominant receiver with the Rouge et Or. Catching seven or eight passes in a game was the rule rather than the exception. In 2022 he was recognized as the best player in U SPORTS by being named the winner of the Hec Crighton Award.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Argos selected him with the fifth overall pick in the CFL Draft, never dreaming for a moment that he\u2019d drop that far. He did, and the Argos are now reaping the benefits of that good fortune.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal coming into the season was to try to get involved as much as I can,\u201d said Mital. \u201cAny time I can touch the football and do something positive, either get a first down or a touchdown and help the offence.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no question his production has seen an incredible increase this season, but what about the receiver has changed from the beginning of training camp until now?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cReal easy,\u201d said Costanza, \u201chis knowledge base and his self-awareness and ownership of learning the offence. What most people wouldn\u2019t see, unless you were at practice or in the meeting rooms, for a guy that English is his second language, and he speaks English well, but to know the details like he does, the communication to the rest of the receivers in practice or in a game, he has a great understanding of what\u2019s going on and is becoming a leader by his work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mital was asked the same question about his biggest improvement from early May until now and he had an identical answer to his coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think consistency,\u201d Mital said. \u201cI try to be disciplined and not make the same mistake twice. Be locked in on the details that Coach Dinwiddie tells us in the meeting room, trying to write down everything and know all the positions if I can, so if a guy has a question he can rely on me and ask me and I\u2019ll have the answer. I don\u2019t have to rely on Nick (quarterback Nick Arbuckle), we can just talk it out as receivers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a season of more disappointments that positives for the Argos, but if Mital can come up with 16 catches in the next three games his milestone will be something worth remembering in upcoming years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Terry Greer, Michael Clemons, Derrell Mitchell, S.J. Green and\u2026Kevin Mital? On the surface it looks like a Toronto…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-187669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-canadian-football-league","11":"tag-canadianfootballleague","12":"tag-cfl","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}