In just over one week, Colorado kicks of their season at Hawaii, but the question remains: who will be doing that kicking? Or any of the kicking for that matter.

To this point, Colorado has yet to name a starter for either kicker position, or punter, but the battles have been narrowed down from three to two.

“We certainly feel that the kicking competition is probably going to come down to Diego Gonzalez and Chris Graham,” said special teams coach Toby Neinas. “And the punting competition is going to come down to Alex Kinney and Chris Graham.”

While he’s not sure it will shake out this way, Neinas explained the ideal finish to the competition.

“In a perfect world, I would love to have a division of labor, but I wanted that last year too, with Will Oliver, and wasn’t able to achieve it,” he told. “If I could have one guy kick for points, one guy kickoff, and one guy punt, that would be best-case-scenario going through a 13 week season, but it’s really going to come down to them. Would that be my wish? Absolutely, but I can’t tell you it’s going to fall out that way.”

Gonzalez, who has turned his focus mostly to place-kicking after coming in as a K/P, thinks that may end up being the way it goes.

“Right now, I think we could split those duties, because I think both of us have been kicking really well in both field goals and kickoffs, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the decision,” said the transfer from Mexico. “If you only have one assignment your legs will be more fresh, you’ll have more pop, so I think it could be beneficial.”

Despite it dragging on for so long, Neinas embraces the idea of everyday competition.

“It’s always good to have competition, and that’s a privilege,” told the special teams coach. “I’ve been in situations before where I haven’t had competition and sometimes it’s tough to elevate the performance of those guys. When you’re in a competition, it’s a luxury as a coach, you don’t have to do any motivating, you just put the guys out there and you let them go to work.”

Between the fact that the Buffs are replacing two four-year starters, and the fact that nobody has gone out and taken the job yet, the fans are beginning to feel uneasy about special teams this season, and the coach, who spent much of his childhood in Boulder, understands that.

“Any time you lose four-year starters, you can’t replace the experience, you can’t coach the experience… you don’t just replace that,” said Neinas. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t have leg talent, but we don’t have the experience. We are going to go through a couple of growing pains this year, that’s going to be unavoidable, that’s football, and that’s life, but I would say the fans are no more uptight about the teams play than I am… Overall I’ve been excited with what I’ve seen from the three big legs that we have in camp.”

So what will eventually decide this marathon?

“We chart everything, we time everything, and the numbers are going to speak a lot,” said Neinas. “The thing that the numbers help you with is, sometimes they illustrate things that you don’t feel, that you don’t catch with your eye. We certainly have discovered a little something in our numbers so far through camp.

“But as I told all the legs this at the beginning of the year, the numbers are going to say one thing, but the end-all decision obviously goes to the head coach,” he added. “I’ll make my recommendation to the head coach, I’ll certainly look at the numbers, but it’s going to be more of my gut, and how I feel. The recommendation that I’ll make to the head coach will be based off of who I feel can give us the best opportunity to execute in the game.”

And that head coach, Mike MacIntyre, is more interested in how they do when the plays are at full speed.

“We chart [live kicks] differently, we chart those separately so coach can see the numbers there with a little bit more clarity as opposed to the work that we do more individually,” Neinas explained. “Coach [MacIntyre] is more interested in the live work, I’m interested in both, as one might imagine.”

As for Diego, he knows about as much on where he stands as we do.

“I don’t know, I don’t want to say something and get excited and have it not go my way,” he told. “I’m just waiting for them, it’s the coaches decision and whatever it is I will accept it.”

The way things are shaking out thus far in camp, don’t be surprised if we don’t know the starters until Sept. 3, right around 11 PM MST.

More quotes:

MacIntyre on the kicking competitions:

“We’ve had a lot of good work on it, the guys are working hard, we’ll find out when we get out there in the ‘live bullets’ we’ll try and do as many live bullets as we can, and make sure we stay healthy. I thought it’s gone well.”

MacIntyre on if he is worried about the kicking game:

“No, I think the kids are very capable, they can do it, they have strong legs, they’re really good, they just have to get out there and do it in a game, there’s always a first time for everybody. I feel like they’ll do really well, I have all the confidence in the world in them.”

On if he is still confident that Alex Kinney will be the starting punter:

“We’re still working on all that, he’s punted really well the last couple of days, and Chris [Graham] has done well at it, too. We’ll see as we have a mock-scrimmage, mock-game type of things coming up, and we’ll see how they handle it.”

Neinas on if his coverage units will be improved:

“I certainly hope so, I certainly hope that the execution of coverage as well as returns is improved, because we so have older players, we have guys who have done it before and you would certainly hope that we would be able to grow upon that. We are going to put a few guys out there that have never really been in a game before. A lot of times guys play their very first play on special teams, which is typical in college football in my opinion, but I would certainly hope that we haven improvement in all those areas… In regards to coverage, so much of it does come down to the leg. If you hit a good ball, you’re going to have a chance to get good coverage, if you hit a ball that’s not as good, it’s very difficult to have good coverage. It’s a great team game, and that’s why I love it, personally. All the parts have to work. If we don’t kick the ball as well on one play, then we have to pick up the slack somewhere else, if we aren’t covering as well, then maybe the kick can pick us up. hopefully we can have more than a few where we’re kicking and covering well.”

Gonzalez on performance in camp:

“I think it’s the best camp I’ve had so far, so I’m really excited.”

Gonzalez on going head to head with Chris Graham:

“I think it’s a really great competition, we have great guys. Chris Graham has improved a lot since last year so it’s a really good competition.”