Disclaimer: This article contains mentions of assault. Reader discretion is advised.
ID’s Murder Under the Friday Night Lights looks at the University of Northern Colorado’s punter Rafael Mendoza’s stabbing by a jealous teammate. The upcoming episode “Twisted Teammate” will air on Wednesday, January 31, 2024, at 10 p.m. ET.
The official synopsis for the episode says, “The stabbing of a star punter coming home from class devastates the University of Northern Colorado football team; what seems like a random tragedy unfolds as a calculated takedown after the investigation exposes jealousy within the team.”
ESPN reported that an attacker allegedly ambushed starting punter Rafael Mendoza
on the night of September 11, 2006. The assailant, fully dressed in black with a hood on, stabbed Mendoza in the right thigh outside his apartment. Police arrested the team’s backup punter, Mitch Cozad, not long after.
In August 2007, a jury convicted Cozad of second-degree assault while acquitting him of the more serious charge of attempted first-degree murder. According to the Denver Post, he received a seven-year prison sentence in October of that year.
Who was the suspect accused of stabbing Rafael Mendoza & Why?
The Denver Post stated that Mitch Cozad, a disguised University of Northern Colorado reserve punter, stabbed the team’s first-string punter Rafael Mendoza in September 2006. According to allegations, Cozad ran up behind Mendoza on the night of September 11 and stabbed Mendoza in the right thigh. The incident occurred outside Mendoza’s Crescent Cove Apartments in Evans at 9:30 p.m.
Reportedly, witnesses saw the assailant jump into a black Dodge Charger and speed away from the scene. Not long after, the same black Charger pulled into a liquor store parking lot, and the driver got out of the car and pulled the tape off his license plates. The store clerk who witnessed the incident then called the police and gave them the license plate number of the vehicle in question. A search revealed that it was Cozad’s car, leading to his arrest.
ESPN reported that Mitch Cozad was initially facing one count of attempted first-degree murder. At Cozad’s trial, prosecutors alleged that he considered Rafael Mendoza, Northern Colorado’s starting punter, a rival. They claimed that the defendant’s obsession with becoming the starting punter prompted him to stab Mendoza in the thigh with a 5-inch-long knife.
Cozad’s teammates also believed he badly wanted to become the starter and were bitter after being passed over. The university’s coaches said that Mendoza was the better punter.
Rafael Mendoza (Photo Credit: RJ Sangosti | The Denver Post via Getty Images)
Defense attorney Joseph Gavaldon argued that another student at the university was responsible for the attack. Gavaldon also told jurors that it was Kevin Aussprung who stabbed Rafael Mendoza. But, Aussprung vehemently denied any involvement in the stabbing incident. The defense attorney then told reporters that Mitch Cozad even took a polygraph test and passed the same. However, the polygraph results are inadmissible in Colorado courts.
The outlet reported that the jury acquitted Cozad of the attempted first-degree murder in August 2007. Instead, the jury found him guilty of second-degree assault. After the verdict, Mendoza insisted that Cozad had attempted to kill him that night. Mendoza said, “I was almost killed, and he got away with that.”
Weld County District Judge Marcelo Kopcow then sentenced him to seven years in prison, reported The Denver Post. Judge Kopcow then directly addressed Cozad, “Clearly, this was deliberate to hurt him, and you succeeded.”
Finally, Murder Under the Friday Night Lights will air the episode on Rafael Mendoza’s stabbing incident on January 31, 2024.
