Arizona Wildcats football training camp preview, Part I: Special teams

Leading up to Arizona’s preseason training camp, which begins Wednesday, the Star is previewing where the Wildcats stand heading into Jedd Fisch’s third year. Up first: Special teams.

Arizona head coach Jedd Fisch didn’t mince his words when overlooking the Wildcats’ roster for the 2023 season.

“It’s our best team,” Fisch said. “We’re not going to shy away from that. I don’t know what that means in regards to wins, but I do know what it means in regards to the type of players we have, the quality of players we have, the talent we have.

“Our guys are going to go out there and play at a very, very high level. If they play at the level that I think we’re going to play at, I think we’re going to win a lot of games this year.”

Fisch conceded, “the team of ’23 is really different,” but like Arizona’s high-powered offense, which returns most of its starters from last season, the Wildcats’ special teams units will have plenty of seasoned returners available for the third season under Fisch.

Key returners: Kicker Tyler Loop, punter Kyle Ostendorp, returner and gunner Jacob Cowing, long snapper Seth MacKellar, returner Isaiah Taylor

Key departures: All-purpose player Anthony Simpson, returner Dorian Singer

The numbers game: 30-33 (Loop’s career field goal mark), 50-50 (Loop’s career PAT mark), 5 (years since Arizona returned a kickoff for a touchdown), 6 (years since the UA returned a punt for a touchdown), 17.7 (the Wildcats ranked 11th in the Pac-12 averaging just 17.7 yards per kick return).

The rundown: Loop, a junior from Lucas, Texas and All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention, is 91% on field goal tries and hasn’t missed a PAT in his three-year career. Despite Loop not attempting a 50-yard field goal, special teams coordinator and tight ends coach Jordan Paopao said, “there’s leg behind there, but we just want to make sure that while we’re balancing and trying to test out how far we can hit it, we have to make sure we’re more consistent on the looks and kicks Coach Fisch is going to ask us to go operate on.”

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Loop is 6 for 9 in career field goals between 40-49 yards; he hasn’t missed, ever, inside 40 yards.

“So it’s really an emphasis on the 40-plus range, but making sure we don’t lose sight of the kicks he was fantastic at,” Paopao said.

Ostendorp, a Phoenix product who was Arizona’s only All-Pac-12 First Team selection in 2021 (the first UA punter since Keenyn Crier in 2007), averaged 45.5 yards per punt. He had three touchbacks, while 10 punts pinned opponents inside the 20-yard line.

One of the more notable developments for Arizona’s special teams unit was implementing Cowing, a preseason All-Pac-12 Second Team receiver, on more units besides kickoff and punt return. Cowing, who led the Pac-12 in receptions (85) last season, played 19 snaps on punt returns in 2022.

“Those are two areas that I’ve been lacking so far in college,” Cowing said. “I haven’t been on punt return and kick return like that, so that’s gonna be my focus, just making plays on punt return and kick return.”

Cowing, who led Arizona with seven punt returns in 2022, will likely be among the names to return kicks this season, and the Phoenix-area native will also become the Wildcats’ “gunner” on punts; that’s a position ex-Wildcat Stanley Berryhill III thrived in during Fisch’s first season. Despite being waived by the Detroit Lions in the wake of his suspension for gambling, Berryhill’s production on special teams carved him a role in the NFL.

“We didn’t want them to look at him as just a slot receiver,” Fisch said of Cowing. “I think it’s a responsibility of a head coach in college football to help your player get to the NFL if they’re capable.”

With higher expectations as a special teams standout, Cowing enters this season as a Second Team All-Pac-12 all-purpose player.

“My mindset is changing from last year to this year, and I’m understanding that this is my last year, so I gotta take in anything that I can out of this opportunity of being here at Arizona,” Cowing said.

“I’m trying to be the best I can be as an athlete.”