Tonya Harding Award

Can't win the punting job? Stab the starter in his punting leg!

A disguised University of Northern Colorado reserve punter on the football team stabbed the team's first string punter in the thigh of his punting leg, officials say.

Mitch Cozad, a sophomore punter, has been suspended from UNC and arrested for investigation of second degree assault in the stabbing of Rafael Mendoza, said Evans police Lt. Gary Kessler.

"I think that would strike anybody as a weird way to get ahead," Kessler said.

Cozad allegedly ran up behind Mendoza in the parking lot of the Crescent Cove Apartments in Evans at 9:30 p.m. on Monday and stabbed Mendoza in the right thigh, Kessler said.

Witnesses saw the suspect, wearing a black hooded sweat shirt, jump into a black Dodge Charger and speed away, he said.

Mendoza, who did not recognize his attacker, was taken to the North Colorado Medical Center in Greeley where he was treated and released, Kessler said.

Shortly after the stabbing, a black Charger pulled into the parking lot of a liquor store in Evans.

The clerk watched as the driver wearing a black hooded jacket, get out of the car and pull tape off of his license plates, Kessler said.

"That's what struck the clerk as quite odd," he said.

The clerk called police and gave them the license plate number of the suspicious vehicle, which turned out to be Cozad's car, Kessler said.

The police still didn't have enough information to arrest Cozad, he said.

But when detectives spoke with Cozad's friends and teammates Tuesday morning, he asked them to provide an alibi.

"He said if police ask, they should tell them that he was with them," Kessler said.

Police arrested Cozad, but he asked for an attorney and they could not interview him about the stabbing, he said.