Arizona's Special Teams Showed Promise in Training Camp
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When looking back at last season for Arizona, anything and everything went wrong for head coach Brent Brennan in his first season as the Wildcats head coach. The team started off at No. 21 in the Preseason AP Poll and had the world on their shoulders with the expectations of the season.
Despite the high hopes from the fan base and coaching staff, Brennan saw his team go an underwhelming 4-8 and the Wildcats lost 7 of their last 8 games of the season. The year was capped off with an embarrassing 49-7 loss at home to in-state rival ASU.
Since the end of the season, Brennan had to hit the reset button and take some time to evaluate what happened and where things went wrong for the team, coaching staff and the season.
That led to changes for Brennan as he replaced then-offensive coordinator Dino Babers with Seth Doege and promoted Danny Gonzales to defensive coordinator from the linebackers coaching position.
Other changes on the staff included hiring Joe Salave’a as the new defensive line coach, hiring Josh Bringuel to replace the void left by Gonzales and getting Josh Miller, who is the right-hand man for OC Doege as the two have worked with each other in the past.
Another change to the coaching staff was adding special teams coach Craig Naivar to the coaching staff. Naivar was previously at Coastal Carolina serving as the defensive coordinator and safeties coach. However he has an extensive background working with the special teams units over the years.
Last season, the WIldcats struggled with muffed punts, poor blocking coverage and inconsistent punting from the options on the team.
This upcoming year, there will be questions as to who will replace legendary kicker Tyler Loop, who ended his career hitting 84% of his field goal attempts.
Naivar has gone to work and added depth in the special teams units by snagging kicker Ian Wanger for kickoffs, landing Australian punter Isaac Lovison, who has one year of eligibility for this upcoming year.
Plus, we have seen returner Michael Salgado-Medina working both in the punting and field goal kicking game this training camp.
Another kicker that walked on to the team is freshman Tyler Prasuhn, whose father John was a place kicker for the Wildcats in the mid-90s.
Salgado-Medina is competing at both punter and field goal kicker going up against Lovison for punting and Prasuhn for kicking.
Right now, it is too close to call, but it feels like Lovison will win the punting job, which leaves the kicking game up in the air as we head into game week.
However, both Salgado-Medina and Prasuhn have been rock solid in camp and have been able to hit from distances 50-plus yards.
One thing to keep in mind is that Salgado-Medina is a veteran and has experience playing Power 4. So, I think that might give him the slight edge as we get closer to the Hawaii game.
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Troy Hutchison grew up attending Arizona athletic events, which gave him a unique perspective and knowledge of the athletic department's rich history. He attended UA and began covering the Wildcats in 2018. As the Arizona Wildcats Beat Writer on SI, he is set to deliver wall-to-wall coverage to give fans an in-depth perspective.
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