Boulder, Colo. ? It starts with injuries, or injury reports, to be more specific.

Kansas State coach Bill Snyder won’t release his, so Colorado coach Gary Barnett doesn’t make his public during K-State week, either.

“You’re talking about total CIA,” Barnett said when asked of Snyder’s long-standing and steadfast insistence on concealing injuries.

And about that camera hanging at the stadium in Manhattan, detailing every move on the visitors’ sideline?

Barnett has no comment on that, but many believe the camera records hand signals made by opposing coaches. Those clips, or so the legend goes, are later spliced together alongside the corresponding plays that are run. That way, the Kansas State staff can analyze them in the offseason, so they’ll know what the hand signals mean when the teams meet again.

On the scale of big-time rivalries, the Buffs (5-2, 3-1 Big 12) and Wildcats (4-3, 1-3) don’t pretend to be Florida-Georgia, Michigan-Ohio State or even CU-Colorado State. Still, it’s safe to say that these are two rivals with plenty of — how to say it? — issues between them.

“Yes,” Barnett said when asked if issues exist. “But I’m not going to elaborate on it.”

Of course, none of this would mean much if the quality of the programs hadn’t been high over the last several years. They meet Saturday knowing that the winner has ended up in the Big 12 title game every year since 1998.

“They know what playing Kansas State’s about,” Barnett said of his players. “There’s no question about it. It gets passed on from year to year to year.”

Colorado coach Gary Barnett paces the sidelines during last week's game against Kansas University. Barnett and the Buffaloes play Kansas State today in Manhattan.

Injury reports, however, most definitely do not get passed on when these teams play.

A federal law protecting student privacy shields universities from having to release injury information about players. But it’s a law more designed to protect students from having their grade-point averages and other private information released, one that’s often overlooked when it comes to injury reporting for football players.

Barnett said he would love to shield his injuries from the public and, thus, the opposing teams, because “it does protect the game plan. Depending on the injury that hits, it can be a considerable issue.”

But because of the high interest in CU football around the state, and because CU is in the same market with the Denver Broncos of the NFL, where reporting of injuries is mandatory, CU sports information director Dave Plati feels there’s an expectation that CU offer updates on injuries.

Except, that is, for this week.

“Injury report is suspended this week as CU’s opponent does not report its injuries,” is the explanation under the blank injury report in this week’s game notes.

Barnett concedes the whole thing is petty, niggling.

“They don’t ever tell you anything about anything, so we just sort of got into playing this little game,” he said.

He knows that minimal digging reveals the Buffs have some injury problems to deal with this week: Offensive lineman Edwin Harrison (ankle), and defensive linemen Alex Ligon (knee) and Walter Boye-Doe (shoulder) all hurt themselves last week. And while Barnett says nothing this week, the D-linemen both claim they’ll be back for Saturday.

So are these rivals cordial?

Legend has it that K-State assistants have figured out a way to eavesdrop on conversations going on within the visiting locker room at halftime, hoping to gather any adjustments the opponents might make. The Buffs are trying to concoct a way to prevent any possible malfeasance.

Barnett, not surprisingly, had no comment on that one, either.