Jury convicts punter

GREELEY, Colo. – Prosecutors said Mitch Cozad was so obsessed with becoming Northern Colorado’s starting punter that he plunged a 5-inch-long knife into his rival’s kicking leg.

A jury agreed, convicting Cozad of second-degree assault Thursday. But he was acquitted of the more serious charge of attempted first-degree murder.

The 22-year-old from Wheatland, Wyo., faces up to 16 years in a Colorado prison for the attack on starting punter Rafael Mendoza.

Defense attorney Joseph Gavaldon said he would appeal.

Mendoza was ambushed outside his apartment on the night of Sept. 11. He couldn’t say who attacked him in the dimly lighted parking lot. He testified the assailant was dressed in black from head to toe and had a hood cinched up so only the eyes were visible.

Gavaldon argued it was another student at the university who stabbed Mendoza, not Cozad.

“Absolute disappointment,” Gavaldon said after the verdict was read. He said he advised Cozad to stay strong and told him, “This is not over.”

Gavaldon told reporters that Cozad had taken a polygraph test and had passed, but he said polygraph results are inadmissible in Colorado courts.

Cozad was a junior walk-on when he joined Northern Colorado’s football team last season after transferring from the University of Wyoming. Over the six days of testimony and arguments, prosecutors portrayed him as an ambitious but frustrated athlete who stabbed Mendoza because he couldn’t outplay him on the field.

Gavaldon told jurors the attacker was Kevin Aussprung, a student living in the same dorm as Cozad. After the verdict, Gavaldon said Aussprung declined to take a polygraph test.

Aussprung adamantly denied he was the attacker.