The Greatest Kicker in Tulane History
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If you've been keeping up with our previous looks back at Tulane's greatest, you would have seen names like Don Zimmerman and Mark Olivari, to name just two, who have played the role of kicker for the Green Wave in addition to their other roles for the Wave.
Though there have been many great kickers in Tulane history...
- Uwe Pontius (1965-1967) Uwe made 17-field goals at a time when the three-pointer was much harder to come by. He and his family immigrated from Germany when Uwe was a child, settling in Oklahoma, but he ended up kicking for the Green Wave. After graduating with degrees in orthopedics and engineering, he was one of the most recognized orthopedic surgeons in the world, holding multiple patents for knee implant devices.
- Ed Murray (1976-1979) The Canadian native started every year at kicker. As a senior, he went 35-for-35 in PATs, finishing his career at Tulane as the school record holder in field goals (45), points by a kicker [at the time] (219), highest field goal percentage [at the time] (61.6%), and extra points (84). He went on to kick for 20-years in the NFL.
- Tony Wood (1981-1984) One of the most prolific kickers in Wave history, scoring 200-points in his career, including hitting 42-field goals.
- Brad Palazzo (1995-1998) Led the entire nation in scoring by kickers his junior year. Palazzo finished his career as one of the most accurate kickers in school history, converting 48 of them.
- Patrick Durkin (2025) Though only playing one year in Uptown, the American Conference crowned him Special Teams Player of the Year as a freshman. Durkin holds the record for most field goals in a season at 25 and the best field goal percentage in a year at 84.4%....
...in NCAA history, only one school has had more Lou Groza Award winners than Tulane. The Groza Award is named after former Ohio State and Cleveland Browns player, Lou "The Toe" Groza, whose accuracy (close to 70%) and distance (quite a few field goals over 50-yards) were unheard of in mid-20th century professional football. Only Florida State has more Groza Award winners than Tulane with four. Arizona State and North Carolina State have the same as Tulane: two.
Setting the Standard: Seth Marler
Hailing from Lilburn, Georgia, Michael Seth Marler was a standout football and soccer player for Parkview High. He earned the nickname The Lilburn Leg on the pitch where he played defender and midfielder.
Marler signed with Tulane in 1999 and quickly proved himself, earning the Conference-USA All-Freshman team and finishing as a semi-finalist for the Lou Groza Award. He had more of the same in his sophomore year, leading the Wave in points and ranking second in C-USA in points scored, all while earning another semi-finalist slot for the Groza Award.
As a junior, he made All-American while kicking the longest field goal of his college career, a 53-yarder against East Carolina and gained the Groza Award for the 2001 season.
Record Setter, Another Groza Winner: Cairo Santos
Brazilian-born Cairo Fernandes Santos never touched an American football until he moved to St. Augustine, Florida as a foreign exchange student in high school at the age of 15. In 2010, Santos committed to Tulane, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The 5' 8", 173-pound right footer was named to the Conference-USA All-Freshman Team. As a sophomore, Santos handled field goals, extra points, kickoffs, and punting duties for the Wave.
In 2012, though, he was on another level. Santos went 26-of-27 in extra points (his only miss was blocked) and was a perfect 21-of-21 on field goals, setting an NCAA Division I record that stands to this day. And those field goals weren't all gimmies, as the junior was true a dozen times from 40-plus yards, two of those from beyond 50. In fact, he hit a 57-yarder against Rice that year, setting the Tulane record. At the end of the season, Santos was named a consensus All American and received the Lou Groza Award .
Santos, the first Brazilian-born player in NFL history, started there in 2014 with Kansas City, working his way through six different teams, the latest of which is the Chicago Bears, with whom he has been since 2020.
The On SI Tulane Greatest Kicker of All Time is a Tie: Marler & Santos
We had multiple votes on this one. Each and every time it was a tie: Seth Marler and Cairos Santos. The case could be made for each of them.
- Santos is 3rd in career FG percentage at 78.2. Marler is 5th at 72.5.
- In a season, Santos hit that unbeatable field goal mark of 100%. Marler is 2nd at a not-too-shabby 93.8%
- Marler hit 66-field goals in his career. Almost a quarter of a century later, he still holds the record. Santos is second with 61. No one else is within a dozen field goals of them.
- Marler was the first Wave player to earn the award as the best place kicker in the nation. Santos became the second a decade later.
We realize that a tie is like kissing your sister, but, in this case, we believe it is sort of okay this time around. The On SI Tulane greatest place kicker in Tulane history goes out to both Seth Marler and Cairos Santos.
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Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.