Arizona’s attempt to add two points after Noah Fifita’s late touchdown failed, leaving TCU with a 28-26 lead and 1:45 to protect it. The lead disappeared only after Arizona recovered the ensuing kick and made a field goal. The Horned Frogs’ final special-teams breakdown made the ending dramatic, but the larger problem had been accumulating long before the pooch kick.
TCU lost 29-28 Friday night in Tucson after Arizona floated a kick over the front line. Ed Small could not secure the ball near the TCU 30, and Zuri Watson recovered at the TCU 26 with 1:44 left. Michael Salgado-Medina then converted from 37 yards with 38 seconds remaining.
That was the decisive sequence. It was also the last installment of a special-teams night that had already cost TCU scoring opportunities. Kyle Lemmermann missed from 37 yards at 14:11 of the second quarter, and Tre Smith blocked his 50-yard attempt at 10:43 of the third.
TCU went 0-for-2 on field goals. Arizona made all three of its tries, including kicks from 43 and 37 yards.
TCU’s first requirement after stopping the conversion was to secure the kickoff. That would not have removed every possible late-game problem, but it would have kept Arizona from beginning its next possession already in field-goal range. The Wildcats recovered at the TCU 26, then needed only six yards across three runs to set up Salgado-Medina’s go-ahead attempt.
It would be too tidy to blame everything on that one recovery. The earlier kicks had already narrowed TCU’s margin. Six points were available from those two field-goal attempts, and even one conversion would have changed the shape of the final quarter.
Arizona would have needed a different answer after Fifita’s touchdown, rather than merely surviving a failed two-point try and setting up a field goal.
TCU had done enough elsewhere to make the special-teams accounting sting. Hudson Hooper intercepted Fifita in the second quarter and took it 93 yards for a touchdown, breaking a tackle at midfield.
The senior linebacker’s return changed a 10-7 Arizona advantage into a 14-10 TCU lead, and his 12 tackles gave the Horned Frogs a major defensive contribution against an offense that finished with 441 yards.
Jaden Craig supplied the other substantial counterweight. His 2-yard rushing touchdown with 6:35 left in the fourth quarter put TCU ahead 28-20, and it capped a 10-play, 77-yard march that lasted 4:59. That drive mattered because it answered Arizona’s pressure instead of leaving the defense to defend a thin margin immediately.
Craig also ran for a 7-yard score in the second quarter and completed 28 of 41 passes for 232 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
