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One of the more intriguing position battles isn’t on offense or defense, it’s in Arizona’s special teams space.

The Wildcats have “a very good competition� at both punter and placekicker — “and those guys know it,� said first-year special teams coordinator Craig Naivar on Thursday.

“In my opinion, unless you have a young man like (Tyler) Loop — that is established, he’s done it, has a lot of reps at it — having competition right now is good because that means you have two pretty good ones,� Naivar said.

Naivar isn’t demanding his placekickers to be Loop, who is entering his rookie season with the Baltimore Ravens after a prolific career with the Wildcats. Loop set a school record with a 62-yard field goal against Texas Tech last season. He made 75-yard field goals during pregame warmups last season, and knocked down a 60-yarder in his first practice at MT&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore.

If Arizona gets into Loop range near midfield, “you don’t kick it from there,� Naivar said.

“You kick the distance your guy can make,� Naivar said. “There are very few guys in the league that have the leg he has.�

Arizona placekickers in sophomore Michael Salgado-Medina and freshman Tyler Prasuhn “are doing a really good job of being themselves,� Naivar said.

“It’s not their job to be Tyler Loop,� added Arizona’s special teams coordinator. “They’re not him. It’s their job to be the very best version of themselves that they can be and contribute to winning field position and winning football games, and those guys have embraced that role.�

Although Salgado-Medina has the longest made field goal (52 yards) of training camp, the lone returner in Arizona’s kicking unit has been neck and neck with Prasuhn, who is the son of former UA kicker John Prasuhn. Tyler Prasuhn made 18 of 22 field goals at Carlsbad High School in California.

Both Salgado-Medina and Prasuhn were 2-for-4 in Arizona’s field-goal period on Thursday. Salgado-Medina missed a 37- and 38-yard field goal, but answered with makes from 45 yards and 48 yards out. Prasuhn, who’s wearing Loop’s No. 33 jersey number, made the 38- and 48-yard attempts, but missed from 37 yards and 45 yards out.

Not every miss is created equal. Sometimes it can be due to a poor snap and/or hold. The initial operation of Jackson State transfer long snapper Avery Salerno, who’s succeeding Justin Holloway, and holder Ian Wagner “was not good,� but has “greatly improved,� said Naivar.

“Operation times are really good right now and I’m happy where they’re at. ... We’re on par with where we need to be,� Naivar said. “I wasn’t fired up about it early.�

Added Salerno: “People think you can just snap, hold and kick and it’s that simple. It’s a lot more than that. You need a bond and you need gelling and you need to know how each other are in that operation.�

Salgado-Medina was Arizona’s starting field-goal holder and punter last season, while understudying Loop at kicker. Salgado-Medina averaged 43.3 yards per punt and had 15 punts land inside the 20-yard line last season.

Entering a new season, Salgado-Medina’s mindset is, “It’s a new group and you have to get your job back,� he said.

“I’m just trying to work at it and win both jobs,� said Salgado-Medina.

It’s conceivable Salgado-Medina doesn’t win either role as Arizona’s starting kicker or punter.

Australia native Isaac Lovison (first name pronounced ai-zack) recently joined the Wildcats in late July and has kicked multiple eyebrow-raising punts in training camp. Lovison has shown strength to boom a 50-plus-yard punt and the touch to land a punt inside the 10-yard line.

Lovison attended St. Patrick’s College in Ballarat, Australia, and is listed as a senior for this season. Lovison hails from an Australian rules football (also known as “footy�) background and recently played for the Great Western Victoria Rebels in the Talent League. Lovison’s coaches in Australia nicknamed him Captain America for his 6-4, 222-pound build.

“He’s built well,� Naivar said. “If you think about it, those guys grow up playing Australian-rules football, so you’re running and lifting like a linebacker basically. Those guys are usually a pretty good build.�

Australia is “a whole continent of young men playing Aussie rules, running and kicking,� Naivar said.

After the spring, Naivar explored adding another punter, but when he looked in the transfer portal for American punters, “a lot of those guys had already been collected and signed to places,� he said.

He tapped into the Aussie market and contacted his resources at “ProKick Australia,� a program that has produced multiple Australian-born punters, including Mitch Wishnowsky, Cameron Johnston, Lou Hedley and Michael Dickson, who Naivar coached at Texas. Dickson was a two-time Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year and Ray Guy Award winner in 2017. Naivar also coached Australian punter Ryan Bujcevski at SMU.

A player like Lovison has two hurdles to overcome and the Wildcats helped with one of them, which is simply getting him to the United States.

“The guys that handle that on the other side of the pond do a tremendous job making sure that they’re where they need to be academic-wise, getting their visas, their I-20 (certificate for nonimmigrant students),� Naivar said. “All of the stuff that goes on with that, those guys are really good with that, and the department here at the university was really good in working with those guys to get that squared away. That was a very seamless transition. The people on campus here did a hell of a job.�

The second task was not only getting Lovison acclimated to life in the U.S., but teaching him the rules and intricacies of American football.

“It’s the first time he has punted a football with football players around him,� Naivar said. “He has kicked the ball a lot of times with Aussies rules players around him. This is the first time with 21 other people on the field, bodies flying around. He’s doing a good job adapting to that.�

When Arizona is backed up and punting near the end zone, an emphasized message from Naivar has been, “Hey, this big white stripe behind you, you cannot put your foot in that area at any time.�

“It’s little things here and there,� Naivar said. “It’s basically the analogy, if you went on your street and just kicked the ball where no cars are around, it’s pretty easy. Go stand in the middle of (Interstate 10) at about 5 o’clock and do the same thing, it’s a different environment. He’s getting used to that environment.�

Naivar, Arizona’s first full-time special teams coordinator since 2020, hasn’t dismantled the kicking and punting techniques from his players.

“I’m not the ego guy that stands up and says, ‘I am the end-all, be-all knower of kickers and punters,’� he said.

Naivar consults with the players’ private kicking coaches, “because those guys are the best in the country at specifically that,� he said.

“Every guy has a really good coach they come from,� Naivar said.

Naivar compared coaching Arizona’s kickers and punters to coaching baseball players.

“Pitchers grow up being told one thing and when they go to another organization, they are told something different and you wreck them,� he said. “A guy grows up with a certain swing pattern and does what he does and is successful, then he goes somewhere else and someone else has all the answers, then they screw him all up. ... It’s my job not to screw it up.�

Sierra Vista kicker ‘has an extremely big leg’

The other kicker Arizona added in the offseason was Wagner, a transfer from Illinois State, who Naivar said “has an extremely big leg, so he brings us some assets to use.�

“He’s a very welcoming addition to what we’re doing,� said Naivar. “He’s doing extremely well. ... Very pleased with where he’s at.�

Wagner graduated from O’Fallon High School in Central Illinois, but grew up in Sierra Vista.

“The connection of where he grew up was big because we always like to have local guys and have guys who are from the state and rep the state, so it was a perfect fit,� Naivar said.

In 32 games over the last three seasons, Wagner made 25 of 36 field goals (69.4%), including a career-long 47-yarder last season. In 157 kickoff attempts, Wagner tallied 91 touchbacks.

Said Naivar: “If we played tomorrow, he’d be our kickoff guy.�

Special teams superstars

New Mexico transfer slot receiver Luke Wysong could have a prominent role for Arizona’s special teams units as a “gunner� on punt coverage or a “jammer� on punt return. He also has experience covering kickoffs and returning punts.

Wysong “can do a lot of things very well (and) he’s a guy with an extremely high motor and has played a lot of snaps in a lot of different roles,� Naivar said.

“He’s a guy that you wish you could put on all four units, but he’s going to play a decent amount of offensive snaps, so we’re making sure he’s at his best to be productive in our special teams units and still be what he’s going to be in the offense,� added Naivar.

“He’s a good guy to have because he has a lot of skills and those skills — hopefully — will be more tools in his toolbox, so when guys at the (NFL) level look at him, they know he’s a guy that can come in and be a part of that little roster they have and can do a lot of things.�

Naivar also noted freshman defensive backs Swayde Griffin and Coleman Patmon are likely to play special teams in addition to their roles as reserve defensive backs.

Excelling at special teams and using it as a vehicle to get playing time is a win-win for the players and Arizona. Naivar said it helps the Wildcats stay competitive in games and “it also puts tools in their tool belt once they get to (the NFL and) find a way to stay on that team and extend their career.�