Following Arizona’s 29-28 midnight miracle win over TCU, junior kicker Michael Salgado-Medina has been named Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Week. It is his first conference player of the week honor and is the tenth Wildcat to earn Big 12 honors since Arizona joined the conference.
*Stats vs TCU: 3-3 field goal attempts, 2-2 extra-point attempts, 37 yard game winning field goal
*Season stats: 12-16 field goal attempts, 35-36 extra-point attempts, one kickoff, one touchback
Salgado-Medina started his night off with a 43-yard field goal in the first quarter to give Arizona an early double digit lead. Then to start the fourth quarter, he hit a 23-yard field goal to cut the TCU lead down to one.
After an unbelievable pooch kick from Ian French and recovery by Zuri Watson, the offense set up a 37-yard field goal attempt for Salgado-Medina. He went on to nail the kick and keep Arizona’s home winning streak alive.
“We go out there with a routine as specialists, and I follow my routine and trust the process, and I trust my routine that I’ve been having,” said Salgado-Medina on the kick. “So just follow it and execute it. It’s a great feeling, being able to execute on it and work so hard for a moment like that, and being able to do it and doing it on stage like this is an amazing feeling.”
There has been some criticism of Salgado-Medina’s performance over the last two seasons, but he has now silenced the doubters. For head coach Brent Brennan, he never lost faith in his kicker and knew when the time came Salgado-Medina would come through for the Wildcats.
“Being a kicker is one of the hardest positions to play in sport, because you don’t know when you’re going to get an opportunity, and then everyone expects you to make it,” said Brennan. “If you don’t, they just dog cuss you for weeks. It’s just such a hard job, right? We’ve seen his consistency in the practice environment. We’ve seen how strong his leg is. We’ve seen how mentally tough he is, and so running him out there, I had full confidence he was going to nail it and sure enough, he did.”
Salgado-Medina joins Caleb “Jet” Smith and Noah Fifita as UA players who have earned conference honors this season.
Ismail Mahdi (2025), Quincy Craig (2025), Dalton Johnson (2025), Genesis Smith (2024), Tyler Loop (2024), Tacario Davis (2024), and Tetairoa McMillan (2024) are other Wildcats on the list to earn Big 12 player of the week honors. Arizona also earned offensive line of the week last season.
With the TCU game being on a Friday, Arizona got an extra day of preparation and it is going to need it for this week’s matchup. The No. 22 ranked Wildcats will be hosting No. 2 Utah and there will be a lot of eyes tuning in for the former Pac-12, now Big 12 matchup.
Kickoff is set for 5:30 p.m. but the day will be getting started well before that. FOX’s morning show “Big Noon Kickoff” will be in town to preview the matchup with the Utes, with the network’s primetime commentary crew calling the game.
“If there was ever a time for the city of Tucson to show up for the U of A and for this football team, and for Noah Fifita, and these awesome kids, Saturday is the day,” Brennan said. “Saturday is the day that we need to pack The Sol. I’m serious. This thing needs to be on fire because all of us have gone up to Utah plenty of times and had to deal with that one, and it’s a tough place to play. Let’s make our place a nightmare for Utah on Saturday.”
